This truly is the height of our national discourse.
No, I won’t. That’s exactly why it’s horrific that we elected him. Because the office of the president has immense power.[quote=“ravenight, post:461, topic:127454”]
Let’s be clear about the “line” - he was badgered over and over by reporters and by some members of Congress about why we weren’t intervening in Syria, and he continued to be cagey about interfering the internal struggle of a foreign country. Then he was basically asked a hypothetical about “what would it take for you to agree that the US should get involved?”
[/quote]
How about we be REAL clear, and actually quote Obama directly:
Obama, Aug. 20, 2012: I have, at this point, not ordered military engagement in the situation. But the point that you made about chemical and biological weapons is critical. That’s an issue that doesn’t just concern Syria; it concerns our close allies in the region, including Israel. It concerns us. We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people.
We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.
… We have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region that that’s a red line for us and that there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front or the use of chemical weapons. That would change my calculations significantly.
When you refuse to acknowledge errors, because you think they were made by “your side” you erode any credibility you might have for being intellectually honest.
This was, clearly, a mistake by the Obama administration. It led to increased aggression by other actors like Russia, who later invaded Crimea knowing that there would be no military intervention to stop them. And there was not.
Yeah, I agree with Obama’s reluctance regarding getting involved in Syria. We’ve had enough adventurism in the Middle East of late and the last thing I would want for this country is to get ground troops involved in yet another messy conflict with a lot of bad actors on every side.
That being said, he absolutely should not have drawn that line if he wasn’t willing to enforce it. It lessens his credibility greatly, emboldens enemies, and can lead to even more dangerous situations.
I like Obama, but that was a big fuck-up on his part, IMO. No man or President is perfect.
It lead to exactly one instance of increased aggression, that you keep trying to blow up into more by acting like it is just an example of all the things that happen, as opposed to an isolated incident that has no clear correlation to the specific statement you are discussing. Obama’s statement about chemical weapons was a good one, it’s one he should have made. The response to an incident of actual use of chemical weapons was that the whole international community and the US Congress turned their backs on enforcing the Geneva convention. I still don’t understand your point about how this was some massive mistake by Obama - he was asked whether chemical weapons use or biological weapons use would be a reason for us to get involved and he said “there would be massive consequences” and used the phrase “red line”, and the press then decided that between those two things the only option would be full-scale war. So again, I ask, what should his response have been? “We don’t want them to use biological or chemical weapons, but we aren’t interested in getting involved in Syria”? Or do you think he really should have attacked Syria without Congress, the UK, the UN, etc? That certainly wouldn’t have been better for him politically. Would it even have had a better outcome, though?
There’s stuff you can criticize about the US handling of the Syrian civil war, but this focus on a single statement by Obama as if it created some massive shift in global politics that made the US weak is just as silly as the “mom jeans” shit. The US was weakened globally by the Iraq war, and the Ukraine was never under our protection or anyone else’s. Should Obama have attacked Russia for invading the Crimea? Again, this is sounding like you are in favor of Trump’s hyper-macho foreign policy. There were pretty big consequences for Russia because of Crimea - the sanctions imposed on the government and on individuals were strong and painful. That’s the way to conduct foreign policy, not swinging your nukes around like a madman, or responding to every threat with a hail of bombs.
No man, it lead to a change in the perception of the world regarding the US willingness to back up its statements. The invasion of another country by Russia (which you laughably tried to minimize) is merely the largest and most overt result.
Hey, it’s totally fine to blame them for refusing to toe the line, it does not in even the smallest way excuse Obama’s mishandling of the situation.
He made his original statement without Congress’ approval. And that’s fine, because this is the role of an executive. But then it’s HIS responsibility to back up HIS statements. What he ended up doing was essentially saying, “Syria better not use chemical weapons… OR ELSE!” and then when they did exactly that, he went to Congress and was like, “Hey… you guys should totally do something about this.” That is weak leadership. He had the power to back his own statements up with action, and he refused to do so. Your attempts to justify his poor leadership in this regard are misguided.
Exactly. Being reluctant to get engaged in ground combat in Syria is a perfectly reasonable stance. I’m not faulting Obama for that.
I’m faulting him for making a statement, and then failing to back it up.
Also, to be clear, I’m not saying that Obama handled the situation perfectly. I’m saying that he was in a difficult situation, his response was entirely reasonable, and the events that occurred after it changed the calculus in ways he didn’t anticipate. A perfect actor would have anticipated those changes and either refused to answer the question or diverted attention. What I’m pushing back on is not whether or not this was the absolute best thing he could have done, but whether it was really a “massive fuck-up” in the way it has been portrayed. It was not, it has not had the consequences you are attributing to it, and most of the people who pushed that narrative did so for political reasons.
Wow. So Trump’s allegations from the podium yesterday (and repeated by his surrogates as well) that this was all more “Fake News!” from sore loser liberal Dems aimed at soiling his reputation and administration was all a BIG LIE and they KNEW IT. The information really originated from other Republicans during the primary, and John McCain himself decided to look into it, then was concerned enough to turn it over to Comey and the FBI for examination by the intelligence community.
Is anyone besides the Guardian reporting this? If true, it’s HUGE news that puts a whole new perspective on the information. It doesn’t mean any of the content of the dossier is real, but it means that enough people within the Republican Party thought it might be that they didn’t just burn it and walk away, they took it seriously.
I don’t know about the McCain stuff, but all the reporting on the background of the dossier I’ve seen has mentioned that it was prepared as oppo research on behalf of Democrats and Republicans.
Everyone reported it. The story from CNN, heck the original story from Mother Jones back in October, mentioned the fact that the report was originally commissioned by a Republicans looking into Trump.
CNN:
[quote]
The memos originated as opposition research, first commissioned by anti-Trump Republicans, and later by Democrats.[/quote]
Mother Jones:
[quote]
In June, the former Western intelligence officer—who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients—was assigned the task of researching Trump’s dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to the former spy and his associates in this American firm. This was for an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client critical of the celebrity mogul. (Before the former spy was retained, the project’s financing switched to a client allied with Democrats.)[/quote]
I’m sorry, I guess you’ve got the true pulse of the world and can see all the covert changes that have occurred as a result of the red line comment. Good thing we’re about to have a madman in office so the world can go back to be terrified of our military power and no one will step out of line again.
That’s complete horseshit. First of all, Congress was drooling over the opportunity to denounce any military action he took, that’s why he asked for their approval. Calling that weak leadership is just political BS. So strong leadership is for the President to just attack and let Congress fall in line with whatever he wants? I bet if he’d done that we’d be talking about how he set the precedent for Trump to attack whoever he wants. Secondly, he wasn’t the only one who said there would be consequences for the use of chemical weapons and then didn’t attack, so it does, in fact, excuse his actions somewhat, just like me having said Trump had no chance to win this election back in May is excused by the fact that many other people also thought that was a reasonable interpretation of the evidence.
This kind of foreign policy is exactly the kind we don’t want, and I will continue to push against this idea that the President must back up his threats military and unilaterally. I would much rather that “massive consequences” take the form of sanctions, and backing of someone’s enemies than military intervention, and I would much rather that the President get Congressional authorization for the use of force except in cases where there isn’t time to wait. This was not a case where there wasn’t time to wait, so attacking simply because Congress won’t be able to restrain him for a bit is the opposite of how I want the President to act.
No dude, YOU are the one spouting nonsensically partisan political BS. You are totally full of shit, and I’m not having it.
You are absolutely right that Congress was waiting to denounce any military action he took! That’s why making a statement, and then relying on them to back him up when not forced to, was a complete and total blunder.
If he thinks that’s the right action to take, then YEAH. That’s what fucking leadership is. That’s why we have an chief executive in the form of a president.
If you want to get Congress on your side before making that type of stand, that’s a totally reasonable position. BUT YOU DO THAT BEFORE YOU MAKE THE ULTIMATUM.
Look, I get it. You aren’t capable of evaluating any of this without partisan blinders. Any criticism of “your guy” is bad, no matter what. But you’re full of shit, and I’m gonna call you on it.
I have to side with Timex on this one. The President can and should take action without invoking Congress when warranted. You can argue about the effects and could’a should’a would’a, but the job of President carries with it the power and responsibility of saying things to other nations and then backing that up with action. It’s not carte blanche to do what they want, but it does give them a lot of power. It’s exactly why people were scared of Trump taking that power.
Obama blundered in Syria. I think most people agree that it was a shit situation, and no option Obama had was great, but threatening them and then doing nothing was weak as hell.
[quote=“Telefrog, post:470, topic:127454, full:true”]
Everyone reported it. The story from CNN, heck the original story from Mother Jones back in October, mentioned the fact that the report was originally commissioned by a Republicans looking into Trump.[/quote]
Good. The media needs to emphasize the point more strongly then when arguing with Trump surrogates. NBC’s Today Show had Kellyanne Conway on this morning and they basically let her get away with claiming it was all fake information created whole cloth by sore loser Democrats. People need to hear, over and over again, that this started out as an investigation by Republicans, became an investigation by Democrats, and STILL didn’t get released to the general public until AFTER prominent Republican John McCain and others became concerned enough to send someone to speak to the source, get more information, and then turned it all over to the FBI via Comey. That chain of events clearly shows that just about everyone outside of the Trump camp is pretty concerned about what the content of the dossier could mean, and we’re not talking about the peeing prostitutes.
Trump is 100% correct about one thing, Putin is very very smart. Putin has to be loving this. It doesn’t even matter if anything in the dossier is real or not, it could all be a total fabrication fed to the source over months by Russian intelligence agents. Because real or not, the end result is the destabilization of the American government. The Russians seem to have had several balls in the air at the same time in 2016, and every single one of them has resulted in a swish three-pointer. They got what they wanted in Syria, they got what they wanted out of the DNC/RNC hacks, they way overachieved with Trump’s election, and now they even scored in overtime with a destabilization of Trump’s Administration before he’s even taken the oath of office. America looks foolish, stupid and weak right now…which is all Putin could ask for.
Yep. But “McCain finds it credible that Trump is a Russian pawn” gets drowned out by “OMG golden showers HAHA. This has gotta be fake.” Never mind that that’s not actually the serious allegation.
Once again Trump benefits from Three Stooges Syndrome.
There are plenty of things you could criticize him on that I would agree were actual problems and things he did wrong, so fuck off with this glib dismissal and either actually discuss the issue or just stop.
No, no, and again… no. Look at how you would think about this if it was Trump. If the President thinks something is the right thing to do, he should convince Congress of it. If Congress is against it, he should pretty much not do it unless the situation changes or he truly believes the consequences of inaction are dire. If Congress fails to act because of partisan obstructionism, then he should consider acting unilaterally - this is basically the difference between “they refuse to take a vote” and “they would vote this down”, but he should still mostly not do it because the consequences of too much unilateral action by the President are concerning. Obama went too far in this direction in some ways that, though mainly for good causes, have undermined Congressional power in a disturbing way. I think you agree with all of this when it comes to domestic policy, so I don’t understand why you disagree for foreign policy. Congress is the ones with the power to declare war, getting their approval should be required and the President should really only ever take military action without that approval if there is an imminent threat and he can’t afford to wait.
This is simply not possible, unless you are suggesting that the President get an authorization for the use of force before making a threat. I mean, look at that statement by Obama - he’s talking about a lot of chemical weapons, not a single difficult-to-verify instance, but the sound byte becomes “you said chemical weapons were a red line, they used chemical weapons.” You know what Trump would do in that spot? He would deny that they used chemical weapons, say the reports were faked or exaggerated (which is what Russia also said), and then everything would be fine! I do think Obama should have, once Congress failed to authorize the use of force, made a big deal about how he was imposing non-military consequences on Assad. But the idea that he did nothing and just sat back while Assad gassed everyone is just incorrect, unless you think there’s been a massive cover-up of additional instances of chemical attacks.
So again, my push back here is about the consequences of this “massive fuck-up”, and in general about what it means to be a strong leader in the modern world. Military force should be a last resort, other avenues should be a primary tool, and a strong US President does not invade or bomb every country that takes an aggressive action or oppresses its people. The mistake Obama made here was misjudging the outrage that would ensue if Syria actually used chemical weapons, and thus over-estimating the political support for a military response. The idea that, having over-estimated that support, he should have attacked anyway is really, really wrong and unbelievably simplistic like this is some board game. Likewise, the idea that because he made a threat and the US didn’t back it up with bombs that the rest of the world felt free to do what they want without US intervention is not supported by any actual events, and is also a simplistic assumption about the calculus involved, as if the circumstances that lead to the US not attacking Syria would hold true across all other situations where military force might be threatened.
You know, I’m not sure about this. Not the smart part, I’ve no doubt there, but whether Putin is very happy with the outcome. I think the argument could be made that his plans turned out far better than expected, which has caused the whole thing to get blown up and made very public. Look at it this way - as former KGB, he’s good at making things happen behind the scenes, getting desired outcomes through underhanded means.
But it’s all been laid bare to the world. Nobody, not even Trump himself anymore, denies that Russia has been influencing electoral outcomes in our country. And while generally showing the U.S. to be kind of stupid, this doesn’t really have a solid benefit for Russia. Let’s say Putin wanted Trump to remove the sanctions in place against Russia - no way in hell that happens now. And the Lindsay’s and McCains in Congress are going to be watching Russia’s advancements like a (pardon the saying) hawk.
I have a suspicion Putin is as amazed as everyone else that things turned out the way they did. And I also suspect that, while he’s probably not unhappy about them, he’s probably not totally happy either.
Does it matter if McCain finds it credible? I mean, the intelligence agencies found it credible enough to include in their briefing. It’s still unverified hearsay at this stage, no matter how credible the person telling us about it is.
If this were the case, then we wouldn’t need a president. You are arguing a position which is logically and provably false simply by examination of the existing powers explicitly defined for the executive branch.
That’s exactly what he should of done, if he was going to require it to back up his threat.
You stopped at the first sentence to make my position seem more extreme, then claimed it went against the constitution. The constitution, though, clearly gives Congress the power to make laws, to appropriate funds, and to declare war. The President is necessary for a wide variety of reasons, but acting in defiance of Congress is rarely one of them. This certainly did not rise to the level of threat that should be necessary to do that and I don’t even understand what you are arguing here. Do you really think the President should mostly apply US military might to suit his own whims and Congress be damned?
LOL. I guess that would be a truly credible threat. “Hey Congress, can you authorize the use of force against the Syrian government if they start moving around a lot of chemical weapons or use one?” Congress: “No.” The press: “Obama is so weak! Look at him ask Congress for authority to enforce the Geneva convention and get shut down. He’s a terrible leader!” Sane people: “Why the fuck does Congress not give a shit about the Geneva Convention?”
It undermines democracy as a whole, which is more than he ever could have dreamed of. Everyone already knew he was a bad guy, so he didn’t lose anything on that front, but his #1 geopolitical foe just shot itself in the face and may never recover.