How Obama's Shallow Worldview Failed Us

[Futuristic Eskimo]

i understand it, but its also important to admit mistakes so you dont do it again

what happened with isis is the same thing that happened with the taliban in the 90's, the american government ignored them as a regional threat until it was too late

Cant be in there trying to handle everything directly breh. From the American perspective, nothing has really happened here to us. Iraq was fragile anyway and this might just lead on the inevitable fragmentation of the country. Otherwise, oil prices havent been affected at all and a couple Americans that volunteered to go to a warzone got beheaded. Whats the outrage about? Some bombs will be dropped, the situation will stabilize further and we'll decide on a course of action from here.

 

[Robbie3000]

obama most definitely fuked up in iraq, he didnt think he needed a plan to address isis, he finally realizes that he does, he is making one now, good for him but its like a year late

Obama Dismisses Al-Qaeda Resurgence: They’re JV
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/01/20/obama-dismisses-al-qaeda-resurgence-theyre-jv/

I don't think any one could have predicted the reach and success of ISIS. But a larger point is how long should we have stayed in Iraq? Especially when they have wanted us out since 2007.

The time table to withdraw was set during the Bush presidency. Iraq refused our offer of residual forces.

 

[theworldismine13]

Cant be in there trying to handle everything directly breh. From the American perspective, nothing has really happened here to us. Iraq was fragile anyway and this might just lead on the inevitable fragmentation of the country. Otherwise, oil prices havent been affected at all and a couple Americans that volunteered to go to a warzone got beheaded. Whats the outrage about? Some bombs will be dropped, the situation will stabilize further and we'll decide on a course of action from here.

on day to day basis nothing has changed, but there has been a political earthquake in the middle east and there will be a political earthquake in the us if more americans or westerners are beheaded

i think you have to separate personal feeling from politics, i kinda agree personally, i dont personally give a fuk about the reporters being beheaded but i dont think that the public at large shrugs, i think there is a lot of outrage about it, where do you get that idea that the american public are shrugging over the beheading? if obama doesnt start looking like he's doing something the republican senate takeover will be worse then its already gonna be

 

[Futuristic Eskimo]

on day to day basis nothing has changed, but there has been a political earthquake in the middle east and there will be a political earthquake in the us if more americans or westerners are beheaded

i think you have to separate personal feeling from politics, i kinda agree personally, i dont personally give a fuk about the reporters being beheaded but i dont think that the public at large shrugs, i think there is a lot of outrage about it, where do you get that idea that the american public are shrugging over the beheading? if obama doesnt start looking like he's doing something the republican senate takeover will be worse then its already gonna be

Im projecting that more action will be taken. The problem with this is everyone except the president has the benefit of hindsight, so all this criticism of Obama not taking enough action to make sure this didnt happen in the year preceding the rise of IS seems so hollow to me. The public was strongly against any kind of increase of military intervention in the Middle East, so even if we wanted to hit IS before they became as strong as they are now, I dont think he had the political capital to get it done anyway. Now what happened happened and everyone is coming out of the woodwork to take shots at Obama acting like there was a sizable, vocal minority out there screaming for action at the time because they knew what the situation would develop into. Its bullshyt and purely political.

 

[theworldismine13]

Im projecting that more action will be taken. The problem with this is everyone except the president has the benefit of hindsight, so all this criticism of Obama not taking enough action to make sure this didnt happen in the year preceding the rise of IS seems so hollow to me. The public was strongly against any kind of increase of military intervention in the Middle East, so even if we wanted to hit IS before they became as strong as they are now, I dont think he had the political capital to get it done anyway. Now what happened happened and everyone is coming out of the woodwork to take shots at Obama acting like there was a sizable, vocal minority out there screaming for action at the time because they knew what the situation would develop into. Its bullshyt and purely political.

the reality is that the us government dropped the ball, isis is something that should have been dealt with behind the scenes but it wasnt because it wasnt seen as a threat

its like 9/11, the "nobody could have predicted" excuse only takes you so far imo, at the end of the day somebody has to accept responsibility for dropping the ball, for the record ive always blamed bush and rice for 9/11, they were focusing on things like russia and iraq when the real problem was the taliban and bin laden, its the #1 reason i never liked bush, he reeked of incompetence and i cant stand when rice would do and still does interviews talmbout "nobody could have known"

the buck always stops with the president, maybe other people are being political but i would be a hypocrite to let obama slide on isis

 

[Futuristic Eskimo]

the reality is that the us government dropped the ball, isis is something that should have been dealt with behind the scenes but it wasnt because it wasnt seen as a threat

its like 9/11, the "nobody could have predicted" excuse only takes you so far imo, at the end of the day somebody has to accept responsibility for dropping the ball, for the record ive always blamed bush and rice for 9/11, they were focusing on things like russia and iraq when the real problem was the taliban and bin laden, its the #1 reason i never liked bush, he reeked of incompetence and i cant stand when rice would do and still does interviews talmbout "nobody could have known"

the buck always stops with the president, maybe other people are being political but i would be a hypocrite to let obama slide on isis

Im not letting anyone slide or making excuses. Im just being realistic about the situation. It just gets incredibly old listening to the same commentary over and over again where its just Obama this Obama that blah blah blah. The buck stops with him, but he has people below him that need to assess the situation and interpret their findings so that he can utilize their advice. If our intelligence apparatus made the call that IS wasn't a threat, then what could have been done? The situation was fukked up all around, but its being portrayed as something bigger than it is. Not much has changed on the ground, but, like you said, its being used as a political talking point to discredit the administration.

9/11 doesnt fall into that excuse because CIA did predict an attack and nothing was really done about it. Even then, I dont blame Bush. Bad things happen in this world. The problem I have is that people try to make sense of the chaos and assign political blame for their own selfish reasons.

I made this point in another thread but the entire "lets blame the president" for everything that happens is really lazy commentary. You're setting every president up for failure because fukked up things are going to happen fairly regularly. There's too many variables involved in almost every decision for someone to get it right all the time. The response to a fukk up is much more important than anything else for a President, in my opinion. People just don't know what a President actually does, so it becomes a giant anti-president circle jerk in both the media and the real world. Its very similar to the way people focus wholly on a star athlete's contribution to a loss, even if the rest of the team was awful. Instead of analyzing the situation for what it really is, everyone takes the path of least resistance and hops on the criticism bandwagon.

 

[theworldismine13]

Im not letting anyone slide or making excuses. Im just being realistic about the situation. It just gets incredibly old listening to the same commentary over and over again where its just Obama this Obama that blah blah blah. The buck stops with him, but he has people below him that need to assess the situation and interpret their findings so that he can utilize their advice. If our intelligence apparatus made the call that IS wasn't a threat, then what could have been done? The situation was fukked up all around, but its being portrayed as something bigger than it is. Not much has changed on the ground, but, like you said, its being used as a political talking point to discredit the administration.

9/11 doesnt fall into that excuse because CIA did predict an attack and nothing was really done about it. Even then, I dont blame Bush. Bad things happen in this world. The problem I have is that people try to make sense of the chaos and assign political blame for their own selfish reasons.

I made this point in another thread but the entire "lets blame the president" for everything that happens is really lazy commentary. You're setting every president up for failure because fukked up things are going to happen fairly regularly. There's too many variables involved in almost every decision for someone to get it right all the time. The response to a fukk up is much more important than anything else for a President, in my opinion. People just don't know what a President actually does, so it becomes a giant anti-president circle jerk in both the media and the real world. Its very similar to the way people focus wholly on a star athlete's contribution to a loss, even if the rest of the team was awful. Instead of analyzing the situation for what it really is, everyone takes the path of least resistance and hops on the criticism bandwagon.

well we disagree

i am very much for the buck stops at the president model and i definitely hold the president responsible at the end of the day, if somebody doesnt like pressure then dont run for president

if the intelligence apparatus made the call that ISIS wsnt a threat then it is the presidents responsibility to find out what was the breakdown and explain why it wont happen again

and i definitely do not agree at all that the situation on the ground is being made into a bigger deal, i agreed that the beheading of the reporter wasnt that big of deal in the big scheme of things, but what is occurring right now with ISIS is a cluster fuk of immense proportions, the beheading of the americans is just a tiny part of it, but there is literally genocide going on and the potential for terrorists with western passports coming out of this whole thing, if you think this ISIS thing is just about dropping a couple of bombs to calm people down i would say you have fundamental misunderstanding at what is at play and you still have grasped whats going on

the problem with the pre 911 government's response is that they never made the connection between the rise of the taliban in afghanistan and terrorism on american soil, you currently and apparently previously obama and whoever prepared his reports never connected ISIS with a direct threat to the united states

 

[Futuristic Eskimo]

well we disagree

i am very much for the buck stops at the president model and i definitely hold the president responsible at the end of the day, if somebody doesnt like pressure then dont run for president

if the intelligence apparatus made the call that ISIS wsnt a threat then it is the presidents responsibility to find out what was the breakdown and explain why it wont happen again

and i definitely do not agree at all that the situation on the ground is being made into a bigger deal, i agreed that the beheading of the reporter wasnt that big of deal in the big scheme of things, but what is occurring right now with ISIS is a cluster fuk of immense proportions, the beheading of the americans is just a tiny part of it, but there is literally genocide going on and the potential for terrorists with western passports coming out of this whole thing, if you think this ISIS thing is just about dropping a couple of bombs to calm people down i would say you have fundamental misunderstanding at what is at play and you still have grasped whats going on

the problem with the pre 911 government's response is that they never made the connection between the rise of the taliban in afghanistan and terrorism on american soil, you currently and apparently previously obama and whoever prepared his reports never connected ISIS with a direct threat to the united states

There are significant things at play here, but none that harm our fundamental, strategic interests or arent controllable at this stage. There is a constant threat of domestic terrorism. I think, especially in the post-9/11 world, no one is taking that lightly. If your point is that the IS movement itself is radicalizing more and more Westerners, that might be a possibility. Its also a possibility that these already radicalized Westerners are leaving their countries to fight in Iraq and Syria. This would mean there would be less of a problem for our domestic security to deal with logically, wouldn't it? Let them fight and die there. They have exposed themselves as radicals and are now less of a threat. Regardless of which possibilities is happening, Im pretty sure no one is taking the threat here lightly and all reasonable efforts to make sure that nothing happens here will be made.

Like I said before, you are essentially expecting perfection. No administration and the people that support it will make the connections 100% of the time. Things will slip through and people will die. The response is the ultimate test. What you are doing right now is extremely easy and, in my opinion, pointless. Anyone can point to a fukk up when its already happened breh.

 

[Truth200]

Im not feeling the Obama hatred on this forum, he is the best president since Jimmy Carter.

And Jimmy Carter was the best president since JFK.

The top 1% in America have turned the US into a Neo Con right wing country that doesn't represent the population here.

 

[theworldismine13]

There are significant things at play here, but none that harm our fundamental, strategic interests or arent controllable at this stage. There is a constant threat of domestic terrorism. I think, especially in the post-9/11 world, no one is taking that lightly. If your point is that the IS movement itself is radicalizing more and more Westerners, that might be a possibility. Its also a possibility that these already radicalized Westerners are leaving their countries to fight in Iraq and Syria. This would mean there would be less of a problem for our domestic security to deal with logically, wouldn't it? Let them fight and die there. They have exposed themselves as radicals and are now less of a threat. Regardless of which possibilities is happening, Im pretty sure no one is taking the threat here lightly and all reasonable efforts to make sure that nothing happens here will be made.

i most definetly reject that assessment, i think what is happening is a fundamental threat to the united states and they are spinning out of control

Like I said before, you are essentially expecting perfection. No administration and the people that support it will make the connections 100% of the time. Things will slip through and people will die. The response is the ultimate test. What you are doing right now is extremely easy and, in my opinion, pointless. Anyone can point to a fukk up when its already happened breh.

yeah its definitely a high standard, that is the point

and of course mistakes will happen

there is difference between blame and responsibility, the blame can be anywhere, but the responsibility falls on one person, and if a mistake happens that one person is responsible for correcting the mistake, im not aware of any reason to deviate from the model of holding the head responsibility for everything that happens

 

[Futuristic Eskimo]

i most definetly reject that assessment, i think what is happening is a fundamental threat to the united states and they are spinning out of control



yeah its definitely a high standard, that is the point

and of course mistakes will happen

there is difference between blame and responsibility, the blame can be anywhere, but the responsibility falls on one person, and if a mistake happens that one person is responsible for correcting the mistake, im not aware of any reason to deviate from the model of holding the head responsibility for everything that happens

When you make a claim that it is fundamentally threatening to our country, at least say why.

The responsibility does fall on the head, but the dialogue in this country has gotten to the point of ridiculousness and monotony. If the dialogue is completely focused on the head of state, everyone else can basically duck under the radar and not do their job to their fullest ability. Blame and responsibility should be given out wherever it is due. If you can show me that Obama's people pushed him to bomb IS and he didn't do it for selfish political purposes, then I would be inclined to agree with your assessment that this is his fault. If he is trusting others to make a call and they fukk it up, I am more inclined to say that the responsibility is on the analyst to do his job. The President isn't there to be an expert on everything and make every call solo. He is there to efficiently leverage his team's expertise to get the job done within the parameters of whatever is politically realistic. If the expertise isn't there, there's nothing he can do. To each his own, though. Im not going to change your opinion here.

 

[theworldismine13]

When you make a claim that it is fundamentally threatening to our country, at least say why.

its a threat the same way the rise of the taliban was a threat, it creates a stage for terrorism to attack the united states

The responsibility does fall on the head, but the dialogue in this country has gotten to the point of ridiculousness and monotony. If the dialogue is completely focused on the head of state, everyone else can basically duck under the radar and not do their job to their fullest ability. Blame and responsibility should be given out wherever it is due. If you can show me that Obama's people pushed him to bomb IS and he didn't do it for selfish political purposes, then I would be inclined to agree with your assessment that this is his fault. If he is trusting others to make a call and they fukk it up, I am more inclined to say that the responsibility is on the analyst to do his job. The President isn't there to be an expert on everything and make every call solo. He is there to efficiently leverage his team's expertise to get the job done within the parameters of whatever is politically realistic. If the expertise isn't there, there's nothing he can do. To each his own, though. Im not going to change your opinion here.

well we just disagree,

and like i just said, there is difference between blame and responsibility, even if obama isnt to blame he is still responsible, if the analyst fukked up, the analyst is to blame but the responsibility falls on his boss and so on, im not aware of any reason to change that system

the only result of changing that would be a system where people in charge can get away with incompetence by just blaming things on subordinates

 

[Futuristic Eskimo]

its a threat the same way the rise of the taliban was a threat, it creates a stage for terrorism to attack the united states



well we just disagree,

and like i just said, there is difference between blame and responsibility, even if obama isnt to blame he is still responsible, if the analyst fukked up, the analyst is to blame but the responsibility falls on his boss and so on, im not aware of any reason to change that system

the only result of changing that would be a system where people in charge can get away with incompetence by just blaming things on subordinates

This link is weak at best breh. There is a microscope on the region right now and I think you might be forgetting that whole "War on Terror" thing thats still going on. These people are being watched. We know who they are now and theyre all in a place that we can bomb from the sky. This is situation is highly desirable for the way we do things now. You think Al Shishani is going to be able to throw down his weapon, chill in Germany for a few years and then plot to attack the US? Its 2014.

Fine, but my point that the public constantly musing about how Obama did this or that and disregarding every other factor is counterproductive to a meaningful discussion stands. Its all political now and has little to do with who did what and how what went wrong came to happen. One side is simply trying to score points on the other. We both know this and thats the essence of the article you posted.

You might just be a partisan hack and Im wasting my time completely here, though

 

[theworldismine13]

This link is weak at best breh. There is a microscope on the region right now and I think you might be forgetting that whole "War on Terror" thing thats still going on. These people are being watched. We know who they are now and theyre all in a place that we can bomb from the sky. This is situation is highly desirable for the way we do things now. You think Al Shishani is going to be able to throw down his weapon, chill in Germany for a few years and then plot to attack the US? Its 2014.

i think this is incredibly wishful thinking and basically bullshyt

we dont know who they are, who told you that we know who they are? they are some people being tracked that is true, but what on earth makes you think that governments are tracking every single one?

who told you they are all in one place? they are definitely not in one place that is why teh situation is a clusterfuk

what does being able to bomb from a plane have to with stopping terrorism? you plan to stop a terrorist with a passport by bombing them?

are you smoking crack?

Fine, but my point that the public constantly musing about how Obama did this or that and disregarding every other factor is counterproductive to a meaningful discussion stands. Its all political now and has little to do with who did what and how what went wrong came to happen. One side is simply trying to score points on the other. We both know this and thats the essence of the article you posted.

You might just be a partisan hack and Im wasting my time completely here, though [

i dont really care about the poltics, the only point i made was that obama made a mistake by letting isis grow so big

 

[Futuristic Eskimo]

i think this is incredibly wishful thinking and basically bullshyt

we dont know who they are, who told you that we know who they are? they are some people being tracked that is true, but what on earth makes you think that governments are tracking every single one?

who told you they are all in one place? they are definitely not in one place that is why teh situation is a clusterfuk

what does being able to bomb from a plane have to with stopping terrorism? you plan to stop a terrorist with a passport by bombing them?

are you smoking crack?



i dont really care about the poltics, the only point i made was that obama made a mistake by letting isis grow so big

You didnt know who they were before IS. The only thing that has changed is that more radical Islamists are in Syria and Iraq, more of them have exposed themselves to our intelligence and we can bomb them using drones now. From a domestic terrorism standpoint, this is a strategic win. This situation has almost zero comparability to the Taliban as we are basically living in two different worlds and you're trying to push that as a justification for why we should've bombed them in the past. Basically, your argument is that any terrorist organization that holds any territory could use that territory to stage further attacks on the US. Essentially, we need to escalate the bombing of at least 5 other countries in the region so that they don't formulate a plot, sneak by and fly a plane into Manhattan again.

I think you might be smoking crack breh. If you think its reasonable in the post-9/11 world for a jihadi to return to the West with today's intelligence all up in everybody's shyt without anyone noticing and carrying out an attack, then theres not much to talk about here. I would imagine anyone returning from travels in Turkey or whatever other routes these guys are taking are being tagged and monitored.

As per the bolded, uhhhhhh, isn't that what you are saying? That we shouldve deteriorated their organization through bombing so that they don't carry out attacks here?