2016 Elections

[Hatshepsut]

You can't just pretend like U.S. military intervention isn't the primary cause for the existence of groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda. The former are, after all, former members of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which consisted of Ba'ath party loyalists in Saddam's regime... A regime we also propped up in the 80s before completely destabilizing the region with Dubya's invasion...What do we expect to occur when we go into Muslim nations and establish rulers who treat their people with absolutely no dignity?

The acute and the chronic in short. Ugly spectacles like the piles of naked bodies at Abu Ghraib don't help. It was this and the waterboardings in secret jails that soured me on Pres. Bush, whom I was willing to support on the initial action against the Taliban in Oct. 2001. It's arguable he should have stayed out of Iraq to begin with although impossible to predict what would have resulted. Presumably Uday would have inherited from Saddam and continued the extreme repression we now know was the only thing holding the lid on the place.

The chronic goes all the way back to Napoleon's entry into Egypt, beginning a 200-year run of shortsighted Western abuses in the Middle East. Yet we have to deal with the situation as it is today. The Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and Islamic State (indeed Al-Baghdadi split off from AQI  ca. 2009, see Wood in Atlantic Monthly) cannot be allowed to operate unopposed. I don't think we can negotiate with them as if they were legitimate players in the world system, either. While these groups feed on anti-Western resentment, it's not just the West and its pro-Western lackeys they hate. They literally want to return their societies to the 7th century. They may well have arisen sooner or later even had the West never become involved in the region.

[Mudhammam]

You can't just pretend like U.S. military intervention isn't the primary cause for the existence of groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda. The former are, after all, former members of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which consisted of Ba'ath party loyalists in Saddam's regime... A regime we also propped up in the 80s before completely destabilizing the region with Dubya's invasion...What do we expect to occur when we go into Muslim nations and establish rulers who treat their people with absolutely no dignity?

The acute and the chronic in short. Ugly spectacles like the piles of naked bodies at Abu Ghraib don't help. It was this and the waterboardings in secret jails that soured me on Pres. Bush, whom I was willing to support on the initial action against the Taliban in Oct. 2001. It's arguable he should have stayed out of Iraq to begin with although impossible to predict what would have resulted. Presumably Uday would have inherited from Saddam and continued the extreme repression we now know was the only thing holding the lid on the place.

The chronic goes all the way back to Napoleon's entry into Egypt, beginning a 200-year run of shortsighted Western abuses in the Middle East. Yet we have to deal with the situation as it is today. The Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and Islamic State (indeed Al-Baghdadi split off from AQI  ca. 2009, see Wood in Atlantic Monthly) cannot be allowed to operate unopposed. I don't think we can negotiate with them as if they were legitimate players in the world system, either. While these groups feed on anti-Western resentment, it's not just the West and its pro-Western lackeys they hate. They literally want to return their societies to the 7th century. They may well have arisen sooner or later even had the West never become involved in the region.

When we're doing everything within our power to 1) pressure our "allies" and "partners" who are habitual human rights abusers to cease the deplorable actions they commit against their own people (which can never truly happen so long as our politicians are themselves beneficiaries of such tyrants and warlords and responsible for our own culture of abusive policies and actions), 2) support those who are poor and/or indoctrinated with economic aid and education, either by directly establishing relations with businesses and authorities in those countries able to effect change, or literally dropping books and food instead of bombs in those without any political stability, and 3) formulate a coherent strategy for not simply destroying cities and terrorist organizations that control them, but that helps establish actual systems of government that the common man, woman, and child will benefit from no matter what their color or creed is, then I will 4) support drone strikes and surveillance in a very limited way.

[Anomalocaris]

I make the major distinction between embargoes that kills not necessarily for a justifiable purpose, and launching a major aggressive war against international norm, and in the process makes an orderly international system with non-violent means of conflict resolution much less credible, and war in general as well as violent attempts to disrupte beneficial status quo and stability much more likely.

The farmer is a callousness,  the latter the essence of war crime.

Well I guess starving children to death in a foriegn country isn't a war crime if a Democrat does it. How about drone strikes on wedding parties?

It's small on a scale of war crimes if it doesn't lead to a lot of wars, wide spread total destruction of infrastructure and dwelling, and collapse of international system of conflict management.   Have some perspective.

[Mudhammam]

Well I guess starving children to death in a foriegn country isn't a war crime if a Democrat does it. How about drone strikes on wedding parties?

It's small on a scale of war crimes if it doesn't lead to a lot of wars, wide spread total destruction of infrastructure and dwelling, and collapse of international system of conflict management.   Have some perspective.

You mean like in Libya?

[Anomalocaris]

L

It's small on a scale of war crimes if it doesn't lead to a lot of wars, wide spread total destruction of infrastructure and dwelling, and collapse of international system of conflict management.   Have some perspective.

You mean like in Libya?

It was a misjudgment, although not an entirely disinterested misjudgment, not anything criminal that we did, that contributed to the Libyan disaster. 

This is patently different from Iraq, whose current calamities are directly traceable to an act of ours which, even without any regard to its consequences, would have qualified as class A war crime, without a full unparalleled since the end of WWII, entirely on its own merit.

[DeistPaladin]

Fuck Hillary.

One word + one number:

October 2013!

For those of you who don't remember, that was our generation's economic equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Republicans had not only shut down the government, costing our economy some $27 billion dollars, but they threatened to willfully default on our nation's bills. This action, as a political stunt, would have caused an economic calamity that would have made 2008 look like a minor correction. 

Maybe I'm more sensitive as a businessman, but I remember biting my nails up until the 11th hour, wondering if the Republicans were really going to press the button and unleash and economic Armageddon. It would have been a disaster to say the least. Fortunately, saner heads (relatively speaking) in the GOP prevailed and they decided instead to do their jobs. 

Rand Paul was one of a few senators who were crazy enough to press the button. 

He voted to default. 

He actually voted to default. 

If he'd had his way, I don't want to even think about what kind of world we'd live in today. 

I don't care what else you have to say about him. That man proved on that day that he is unfit to run around with scissors, much less be trusted with any political power. 

[Anomalocaris]

It always easy to look principled and courageous before idiots by putting only other people's lives at risk of ruin and threatening a system which, while not pretty, does provide.

Rand Paul is the top on the list of this kind of chest thumping coward.

[Hatshepsut]

....or literally dropping books and food instead of bombs in those without any political stability, and ...formulate a coherent strategy for not simply destroying cities and terrorist organizations that control them, but that helps establish actual systems of government that the common man, woman, and child will benefit from no matter what their color or creed is...

Get back to me when once we have the particulars on what all these strategies will be and how they will work. I think we should be sharing more of our wealth and expertise with other parts of the world than we do. Although we're never going to share enough to bring everyone in the world to an equal standard of welfare, which is what would be needed to eliminate the envy and jealousy that motivate a lot of the friction in the world system. Equalization would probably require Americans to surrender about 80% of their paychecks to the donation fund. It'll never happen that way. The poorer countries are going to have to work their way up like the rich countries once did.

Not to mention the problem of making sure this money goes to people in need instead of to cronies waiting for it on the dock. And that it's for projects that will be useful in the recipients' cultures. White elephants and aid theft have been bugaboos with development aid. Even then, just the fact that there are  donors and recipients in this relationship creates resentment. Nobody likes to be a dependent on someone else's goodwill.

As for constitutional reform in Muslim lands, that's something the citizens of those lands will have to do for themselves. We can't do it for them. Another reason I was skeptical about Bush's "democracy in Iraq" thing. I only hope our era of CIA-sponsored tin pot dictators is over, so we don't keep making it harder for them. However, corruption and brutality were features of government there before we stepped in. Not everything that's wrong with their politics is our fault.

Policing security threats posed by organizations like IS without killing anyone is pretty hard. These fellas are hardcore. Al-Baghdadi would like to rule the entire planet as caliph and have American gays nailed to crosses and American women in Burqas. He doesn't have the power to do it. And raw power is precisely what determines whether a person or group can or cannot do something in this world. While IS governing in Washington is unlikely, it's true that dropping food and books on their territories won't change anything, and if they are left alone their area of control will expand. For that reason I can't insist on moral purity for our side before we act against IS.

[Minimalist]

Not everything that's wrong with their politics is our fault.

Correct.  The British and French helped a great deal.

[Anomalocaris]

Not everything that's wrong with their politics is our fault.

Correct.  The British and French helped a great deal.

Actually, it is not easy to imagine they would have faired much better in the modern world if the Turks still had free rein over them.