1. Why is a Syrian Civil War our problem? What threat is Syria to America? ANSWER: It's not and they are not. The stability of a central point in the world is vital to us. Not only does the situation in Syria, Lebanon & Iraq have a direct impact on those countries it redounds to the rest of the ME and a significant portion of the world's oil supply. Beyond that the region is on the historic throughway between Europe, Asia & Africa. Instability there threaten the whole Mediteranian and western asia through Pakistan & India. 2. Why would you want to waste American dollars and sacrifice American lives in yet another ineffective middle eastern war in which we have no vital interests? Red herring... NO ONE has suggested american boots on the ground and to equate involvement with that is obsification.. There were solutions that we could have pursued before the civil war expanded as it has. The president avoided pursuit of the solutions and now the fire is out of control. 3. We have no friends in this fight. Assad is an implacable enemy, the rebels are a mix of islamic revolutionaries and fanatical jihadists. The winner will anti-American. There is no gain for us in this. Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordon are all our friends to one degree or another (Turkey is a key NATO member) who are being directly effected. by the war. The whole ME oil supply is at risk depending on the outcome and spread. So yes Red we have friends and a stake. Reed you equae being involved and taking a leadership position with sending in the troops. That is a false analogy. Reagan was tough, respected and feaed by his ememies yet did not need to send in fighting forces except as a last resort and pulled them out quickly when he did. Same thing with Clinton in Serbia. 4. American best interests here lie in the continued success of Israel. Now Hezbollah and the AQ jihadists are fighting each other and the Syrian government with its large military is totally engaged with the revolt. They are no threat to Israel anymore. Why would we want to stop this? All parties will weaken themselves and leave Israel facing a toothless Syria. Moreover by forcing Assad to destroy his chemical weapons, Israel no longer needs to fear WMD retaliation. See point 4 above. Syria is not as simple as you make it. It has many facets like Saudi v Iran, (Shia v Sunni) the crazes v Assad v moderates, the spillover into neighboring countries. If it were as simple as you pretend it to be then you might have a point but it isn't my friend. 5. Couple of big ballsy wars in the Middle East have taught some of you nothing. They did not accomplish their goals and only half bankrupted us and cost us 30,000 casualties. That experiment was a failure in Lebanon in 1982, in Afghanistan in 2001, and in Iraq in 2003 The spectacular success of the Kuwait liberation only works if you hit hard with overwhelming force, have achievable goals, and get out quickly. Again the false equivilancy of Iraq & the second phase of the Afghan war. A we didn't have to go to battle had we helped the Syrian rebels erly, restricted Assad's use of air power (ala Clinton & Bush 1 in Iraq and Serbia). In fact Serbia would be a good example of using leadership to gain a positive result. Obama failed to do what Clinton did and the mees is having more and more repercussions and will be more difficult to contain because of that. 6. Big Stick diplomacy has been successful for over 100 years now, for many Presidents and Obama is one of them. It's working in Syria. It's going to work in Iran, too. There is going to be a changing of the guard in Iran in the next decade or so. The younger people are more interested in trade and the economic recovery that would happen if the sanctions were totally lifted. They don't the need for nuclear war with Israel or the US, one in which they would lose. They have an ancient country and are very proud and nationalistic and we can use that to induce them into redirecting the nuclear program from military to civil. The stick and the carrot is more effective than the stick alone or the carrot alone. If President Obama were using a big stick Syria wouldn't be the slaughterhouse it is. Klute phrased it perfectly he has used a limp stick. Click to expand...
I asked you first but I'll go, because none of his policies are socialist. Obamacare is capitalism like it or not, when the insurance companies are taken out of the mix, and there is a single payer system like Medicare for all, that's socialism and frankly I can't wait for that to happen. Which policies or laws are socialist? None. John Steinbeck had a great quote "socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires". This is where alot on this particular forum will disagree with me but socialism is not some dirty word or terrible ideal. Capitalism run amuck is.
I know, I was just funning. The fact that they "work" for it is up for debate too. I have a lot of farmer friends and it's gotten to where they more oversee the messicans than work.
We can agree to disagree, off the top of my head I think his policies/positions on the following are closer to socialism than democracy: 1. Healthcare 2. Guns 3. Taxes, he says the "rich" should pay more taxes, when the top earners payed roughly 39% of all federal income taxes. This article in Forbes sorts sums up how I feel about it, again how I see it and apparently I'm not alone. I believe Flat tax is the solution above a certain income. http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterfe...-really-a-socialist-lets-analyze-obamanomics/ 4. Ties to the 5 individuals I mentioned earlier in this thread As someone else said, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and acts like a duck........ Just off the top of my head.
Red, that's some strongly argued points there; you mind directing me to whoever your arguing with because it ain't me. You threw tons of shit against the wall hoping something would stick and change the subject, which is a frequent tactic of yours. Followed by the obligatory 'I'm the fax-man' line. Pay attention. YOU SAID - 'they faced an air assault from Barry The Bold so they coughed up the WMD's!' I SAID - 'Bullshit, Obama has not been bold in Syria; and Syria knows he's not threat to them" And then you regurgitated all of that other stuff above which has nothing to do with the conversation - hence irrelevant. Obama's inexperience can be blamed for the first 'Red Line in The Sand' foolishness . But he trumped it with announcing Syria's chemical weapons use 'Is the Worlds Red Line in the Sand'! Remember that one. But the world said 'WTF, Barry, mis-speak for yourself'. But the Bold one wasn't done. In an outstanding display of crisis message coordination Kerry announces we may need boots on the ground and Obama publicly refutes him - No Boots, says Barry as he publicly cuts Kerry at the knees. Assad is really shitting his pants now. Here is the punchline - the removal of WMD that you give his Boldness credit for - was a Russian idea - that Kerry publicly mocked. And then he had to backtrack and accept the Russian plan when the Russian played him. Do you think Putin structure the plan with a concern for (a) gassed Syrian children or (b) his only naval facility outside of the Soviet Union. I'm putting my money on the latter. I bet Assad can hardly sleep these days thinking about the Bold threat. Israel bombed Assad's nuclear reactor. They didn't warn, they didn't bluster, and they really didn't take credit later. Afterwards, I bet they delivered an unofficial back channel message about their concerns if Syria would try to build another. And I bet Assad listened because their warnings are credible. But Obama is not a credible threat to Syria. And Obama has no one to blame but himself.
Thanks for your response on the polling question LaSalle, I’m glad we agree on about half of that. With respect to the other half · Immigration reform – he should have at least tried to do something his first two years. He had the house, Senate and the country behind him. He had momentum · Obama care – the worst thing here was the roll out made them look incompetent. They looked lost. Then the piling on by Republicans on the ‘keep docs and plan’ comment became easy. When the tables were flipped the Democrats did the same type of piling on. · IRS – the targets weren’t rich conservatives; the targets were political groups · I agree he inherited a horrible situation, and its ok to point that out. But at some point it becomes whining, and I think they passed that point · Stimulus – we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. I just know that people on both sides of the isle think there should have been more focus on job creation. But he would have had a hard time herding the cats on this topic. As an aside – I agree with your position on pot
