could any president have gotten away with NOT bombing ISIS?

[cali]

Here's the thing: I think President Obama is a reluctant warrior, but I don't think it matters. I wonder if he had said, no we're not going to bomb ISIS in Syria what would have happened. Would the Congress have authorized military action? What kind? Would other countries have intervened militarily? What would have been the ramifications for the President and his administration domestically? As for Iraq, was Baghdad really in danger of being captured by ISIS?

What kind of a threat does ISIS pose? Is it a short term threat? Are they in some way self-limiting, like certain viruses? Do the actions taken actually strengthen ISIS; give it a more potent appeal as a "david" against a "goliath"?

It seems to me this all became inevitable with the Iraq War. President Obama inherited a total clusterfuck with no good options. None. He's President at a time when the MIC is more powerful than ever. I don't support what we're doing now militarily in large part because I think it will make things worse, but I don't blame President Obama. I don't think he's anything like bush who lusted to be a war time President.

[Cali_Democrat]

1. "President Obama inherited a total clusterfuck with no good options."

WRONG.

Obama could have dismantled the military industrial complex.

Obama could have thrown Bush and Cheney in jail.

Obama could have had Congress kill defense spending completely and totally.

Obama could have had single payer pass Congress easily.

He just didn't try. DU knows how to get this shit done, but he just didn't listen.

Dude sold out....

[cali]

2. do you ever post anything with any thought put into it?

[Sherman A1]

4. This seems

a bit harsh.

I understand that you may not agree with the post(er), but............

[morningfog]

15. If you are familiar with the poster's history,

cali was too kind.

[Union Scribe]

16. No, it was more than fair. Too charitable frankly. nt

[Sherman A1]

26. You have your opinion

...............

[3rdwaydem]

28. Very rude indeed and more a reflection of you than the topic poster

[Cali_Democrat]

38. I suppose it depends on what you consider to be "thought"

I could post about how Obama's NSA is out to destroy Michelle Catalano and anyone who criticizes her is engaging in character assassination.

But then again, I don't put any "thought" into my posts.

Thank gawd we have you.

[brush]

29. Could have dismantled the military industrial complex?

What are you smoking? Do you even know what the military industrial complex consists of?

Apparently not or you wouldn't make such an uninformed claim.

And as far as killing defense spending completely, and passing single payer easily, please tell me what's

your drink of choice because it's apparently very strong and drives partakers to delusion.

[baldguy]

44. Looking for ice cream & ponies.

[randome]

3. Maybe taking action to defend people from ISIS is actually the best option.

Why does it need to be framed in terms of what someone might have 'gotten away' with?

None of us are military strategists so, combined with a general trust of Obama as a human being, I think it's safe to -for the most part- to trust his actions.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[cali]

8. Because I think discussing the constraints and pressures on Presidents

is worthwhile. I realize "gotten away" is awkward, but the point is pretty clear despite my awkward phraseology.

I'm not a military strategist, but this largely isn't about military strategy. I analyze situations and reflect on as many aspects of any given policy to the best of my ability. It's not about trusting the President to me. And in this case, history is an indicator of future results to such an extent that I don't think it should be ignored.

[randome]

10. Well said.

But does history contain any examples where we decided to ignore something and it turned out better? That's probably harder to pin down, sort of like trying to prove a negative, just wondering.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[cali]

19. that kind of is asking to prove a negative

but the Cuban Missile Crisis comes to mind. We didn't exactly do nothing , but then again that crisis was largely precipitated by our "doing something"- the bay of pigs. I can think of lots of examples where doing something militarily was clearly disastrous.

[GeorgeGist]

5. Yes.

[liberal N proud]

6. Thanks to the bush regime probably not

What we can know from their rhetoric McCain or Romney would have been in Syria mess.

[Renew Deal]

7. Eventually someone would have had to go after them

We could have waited for the victors and then fought with a new established nation.

I also wonder if Obama did it to control the situation. It would go differently if it was left to his successors.

[cali]

12. Maybe. Maybe not.

they were never going to be more of a nation than they are now, and they aren't a nation. A group can't just say "we're a nation" and have that be factual.

When discussing this with those of you who support this, there is inevitably a paucity of consideration that military action may make matters worse rather than better. Yet the recent history of our military intervention in the region has been a history of destabilization. There are now more radical jihadists, not fewer.

[Renew Deal]

13. Assuming that I support it is wrong

I'm trying to answer your question. Obama usually thinks about the future. I'm sure he thinks that if this is left to Hillary/Jeb/Christie/etc it will be a much bigger military commitment.

[cali]

20. but by the administration's own words we know that he does think that this will

be unfinished by the time he leaves office.

[Bragi]

25. Hmmm....

You wrote: "A group can't just say "we're a nation" and have that be factual."

Isn't that how the US started out becoming a nation?

[Enrique]

9. it would have to be an extraordinary president

we should try to get one of those sometime.

[stevenleser]

11. I think we agree for a change. In particular about the "clusterfuck with no good options part."

Which is what I have been saying all along regarding this issue.

There are no good options. Only bad and degrees of less bad. Once one understands that, criticism of the President on this issue for what he is doing make absolutely no sense.

[cali]

21. but criticism of the actual policy; it's ramifications, the possible

outcomes, whether or not this sets a dangerous precedent is, imo, vital.

and thinking about why a President may have so little choice in such matters is also important.

[geek tragedy]

14. Largely agree. When there are nothing but bad

options available, the perception of failure is inevitable.

[Union Scribe]

17. We live in a stupid, frightened culture

and those in power have successfully convinced generation after generation of Americans that the only way to keep us safe from (fill in the blank) is to hand over trillions of dollars and our personal freedoms to war-hungry stains on the human race who sit in the back of limousines and watch the blood of suckers and victims fill the streets of a place most citizens here couldn't find on a map before being convinced it had to be destroyed.

[randome]

18. I don't know anyone who is afraid of ISIS. Do you?

I think it's more in the line of letting the military handle military matters. Especially when directed by a Commander-In-Chief that most people trust.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one you’re already in.[/center][/font][hr]

[cali]

22. I think there's a ton of evidence that a lot of folks are scared by ISIS

and I think support for the bombing is the strongest evidence of that.

[The Magistrate]

23. I Doubt It, Ma'am

"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."

[Shankapotomus]

24. “if you break it, you own it” - Colin Powell

Bush and Company broke it.

Nothing Pres. Obama does now can be "wrong." It's just desperate damage control at this point.

[Peacetrain]

27. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Colin Powell was so prophetic on that one..

[amandabeech]

37. At the Pottery Barn, if you break some of their merchandise, you pay the price of the merchandise

that you broke.

You don't have to buy the store's inventory forever.

But it is paying for the inventory forever that we seem to be doing in Iraq.

In commercial disputes, the parties through negotiation usually come up with a settlement, and in some cases, the cost of breaking a commercial contract is stated in the contract as "liquidated damages."

Perhaps we should negotiate a monetary settlement with the Iraqi government, pay it, and just walk away from this mess a little poorer and a lot wiser.

[Thinkingabout]

30. From President Obama's actions in the past I do not think he is inclined to jump up and bomb and

ask questions, he also knew this needs to be a world agreement rather than one or two countries as in the invasion of Iraq. No, this isn't going to be easy, if it was a nation with fixed borders it would be easier. We have not heard the intelligence briefing given to Congress and we do not have the information needed to make a decision but with the information on the news media is this is a very radical brutal group. I don't know if they can be reeducated to control this radical behavior.

[brush]

31. Not a chance. After those beheading videos even some anti-war progressives were for going in

And we have to acknowledge that the President of the United States is head of the most war-mongering, blood-stained, military-industrial-complex dominated empire in the history of the world, i repeat, THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, and the forces that wield power within it, even beyond the power of the president, will not be denied yet again a profit-making opportunity.

Obama has shown remarkable restraint, and courage in the face of those aforementioned forces, in keeping us out of war in Syria, he played his cards right and got rid of Kaddaffi without sending troops, he let the Egypt Arab Spring play out to get rid of Mubarak without troop intervention, and he openly stated we're not sending troops to the Ukraine.

He has constantly shown his anti-war bona fides and even with this ISIS crisis his reluctance to get into a war is obvious to those who take the time to look and access the situation instead of repeating the far right and/or far left talking points against whatever he does.

I said all that to say that the President of the United States, and all that that title entails, could hardly keep out of this ISIS crisis and survive. That's right, I said SURVIVE.

If Barack Obama had went on national TV after those beheadings and said we will do nothing in regard to the current ISIS crisis he would, IMO, be either assassinated or perish in an Air Force One crash or some other "accident" within 6 months.

The MIC and its bought-and-paid-for sycophants (repug and some dem politicians and/or their agents in the field) would see to that. Empire and humongous, humongous profits, not gained previously in Syria, Libya, Egypt and the Ukraine are at stake here and no reluctant-to-go-to-war president will be allowed to stand in the way, especially a black one. Matter a fact, better make that dead in 3 months instead of 6 because of the black factor.

[Douglas Carpenter]

32. I doubt it. The invasion of Iraq and the destabilization of Syria created a power vacuum that ISIS

filled. Given the geography and the strategic interest involved - I don't think anyone could politically avoid military action at this point.

[JEB]

33. Americans want their killing and they want it now. We are nothing unless

we are killing OTHER people. Goes for any president. It is just what we are. Yeah, we got a handful of marginalized, ridiculed and demonized fools who think humans have the capacity to work out their differences without bombs, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, drones, land mines, and missiles, but they are of no consequence.

[randome]

35. Well, ISIS certainly isn't interested in 'working out our differences', are they?

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]

[JEB]

45. We willing sink to any level.

But that is fine as long as we get a big ol' bloody pile of money for the MIC. Amen, pass the ammunition.

[jwirr]

34. No. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

[Chathamization]

36. He could have not bombed ISIS, but the establishment would have called him weak and feckless

And if some lone nutcase pulled off something like the Boston Marathon bombing, you better believe there'd be people spouting garbage about how Obama let the terrorist win.

I mostly agree with your assessment, and I think we saw a good example last fall. At that time the establishment (media, politicians, talking heads - not the MIC so much in my mind) was pushing for Obama to bomb Assad (because, why not?), and it seemed like he finally felt like he had to appease their bloodlust until Assad gave him a way out. Arming the Syrian rebels is something else the establishment has been crowing about that Obama had been trying to avoid (and, tellingly, Mitt Romney pushed back on the idea as well). You can be sure if we had listened to those idiots and sent arms, 90% of them would be in the hands of ISIS now.

I think Obama knows this round of bombing won't solve things (and he knew that bombing Assad or arming the rebels wouldn't), but it will give the establishment what they want (you might have already noticed many are talking about how Obama is finally doing something or finally has a strategy). It would be nice to have a president that would actually stand up to the idiocy in the establishment more often (Obama does occasionally), but it seems more likely that our next president will be someone like Clinton who shares their views.

And no, I don't think Baghdad (or Irbil) was in danger of falling. ISIS has mostly operated in Sunni Arab territory, and I don't believe they've taken over any cities of other sects (they have taken over a few small border towns).

[Recursion]

39. Sure, if ISIS were located a bit farther south and west in Africa... (nt)

[cali]

40. true enough.

location, location, location.

[SomethingFishy]

41. Shoot first, deal with the aftermath.

That has become American policy, for citizens, cops and the military.

[ieoeja]

42. Are there two of you?

I was reaching the point of taking another break from DU because of the "hypocrite" accusations on this site. I would have sworn you were one of the most anti-Obama critics on ISIL. But I must have confused you with someone else.

Or did I conflate a boatload of rationale criticism by you with the others? Frankly, I'm too lazy to bother looking it up.

That's a lie. Actually, I've been drinking awhile. Lazy has nothing to do with it.


But you gave me an opening to a rant (what could possibly go wrong?). That "hypocrite" bullshit has me really fucking pissed.

A long, long time ago, in a country far, far away, we helped the Afghan Muj until Reagan left office, and Bush the Smarter stopped trying to re-raise the Iron Curtain thus letting the Soviets call it quits. Russia pulled out of Afghanistan. Elections were held in Afghanistan, and normalcy returned.

Then Arab outsiders, aka Al Qaeda, radicalized and funded a group of Pashtuns who launched a civil war. While the Pashtuns were being funded by Arabs, we stopped funding the elected Afghan government. The leader of the Muj left Kabul trusting the Taliban to honor an agreement to leave Kabul neutral territory. They lied. The Afghan gov't in exile had to coelesce around a Northern Alliance, and fight a weakened position from that point onward.

In Kabul, the Taliban brought in a dark ages government the people of Kabul had never known. One day, a single, female lawyer put on her mini-dress after work and hit the nightclubs. The next day, she was in a burka and not allowed to leave her apartment unaccompanied by a male relative. But she had no male relatives in Kabul. So had to sneak out on her own to get food and hope not to get caught. Or maybe she didn't know the rules? Or maybe, she just couldn't take it anymore because she was not raised in this culture? She was a fucking independant, adult woman for cripes sake!

As much as we may not like their culture, Iran and Saudi Arabia do not stone hundreds of women to death in soccer fields on a routine basis like the Taliban was because the women in Iran and Saudi Arabia were raised in that culture. The women of Kabul were not. Doing this to the women of Kabul was no different than doing it to the women of New York city. It was monstrous.

By the mid '90s Russia was begging the United States to help their former enemy. They even offered the US land routes through Russia to accomplish this.

And by the mid '90s a large number of people in the US were complaining about US inactivity in Afghanistan. Those people were not Conservatives. Those people were not Hawks.

Those people were Progressives. They were Liberals.

And in 2001 ... before 9/11 ... a lot of those people were on DU.

US made it possible for the monster to exist. We wanted to do something about it. And the exact same fucking thing just happened in Iraq. We called for US intervention in Afghanistan in the '90s. We are calling for US intervention vis-a-vis ISIL today.

And everyone (I'm looking at you Will fucking Pitt) who wants to call me a fucking hypocrite because I thought the Iraq War was fucking stupid (Rude, help me out here) because it was fucking stupid and would cause the problem we see today, but want the US to respond to ISIL the exact same fucking way we wanted the US to respond to the Taliban in the '90s can suck on it!

Cause that ain't hypocrisy, you stupid (I give up after deleting three different endings to this sentence; seriously, where's Rude when you need him?)!

Parantheses totally ruined the exclamation point at the end. Did I mention I've been drinking?

[Vattel]

43. If you are correct that what Obama has chosen to do will make things worse,

and it also involves killing innocent bystanders as collateral damage, then why don't you blame Obama for what he is doing? Nobody forced him to usurp Congress's war powers and take the nation to war against ISIS. Would his approval ratings have gone down had he not favored war? Perhaps. Would the Congress have forced him to go to war? I doubt it, but maybe that is your view.

I don't see how the fact that there are no good options makes it blameless not to choose the least bad option.

[LWolf]

46. Sure.

A lame duck can get away with anything that's not illegal.

A Congressional over-ride wouldn't mean he didn't get away with it; it would mean that the bombing could not be laid at his door.

[JEB]

47. Doesn't make a rat's ass who is POTUS,

we are going to kill who ever we want. Sure, there will be blowback, but we will just kill whoever has nerve to resist and a bunch of other folks. Collateral damage, just part of being who we are. Don't sweat the small stuff.

[Initech]

48. The military industrial complex is the one that calls all the shots.

They profit trillions bombing other countries into submission, if their precious money were to stop, they'd get angry.

[quadrature]

49. short-time-President ...--->... short time thinking ...

28 months left to fix things.
also applies to his whole administration.