Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
|
|
|
Nov 14, 2012 - 01:15pm PT
|
"...the overwhelming majority of the posters seem intent on bashing the without regard to any principles of dialogue, much less good advocacy, I don't see the point."
Come on, John. This dynamic has been implicit to these threads from the start. The 'quality' (word used verrrrry loosely) of the dialogue varies only slightly over time, but more times than not is just bantering, nitpicking, gotchas, closed-minded ranting, interspersed with a few funny pictures or Locker's cameltoe. (Not that Locker has a cameltoe...you know what I mean.)
My observation of the tone of this thread (and the media & public) in the last coupla months has been that it became increasingly heated, each side sure that 'they got this'. Then came that cold slap of reality, and Republicans are once again in retreat, licking their wounds, angry as ever, scheming for another comeback, blaming the American public for abandoning morality in favor of their own selfish interests....
Yeah, that's surely a strategy for success.
Edit: 'I was on a radio talk show last night for a short time-"
Seriously? What channel? Is it archived somewhere?
|
|
apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
|
|
|
Nov 14, 2012 - 01:29pm PT
|
"But to think that somehow because the election is over so all in the past is done isnt thinking clearly."
Who's suggesting such a thing besides yourself?
We're just happy that there's a chance we will be moving FORWARD, instead of reverting to the failed, backward policies of the GOP.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Nov 14, 2012 - 02:00pm PT
|
In other words,, Libya is 10 times worse than it was under Kadufus. Yet the current admin said it was a GREAT thing in taking out kadufus - and that it would 'free libya' ... It HASNT done anything but make libya worse.
In all your hyperventilating hysteria you just don't get it, do you?
The "Arab Spring" wasn't a US foreign policy initiative gone bad - it was a US foreign policy response to events the people of North Africa and the Mideast initiated. It's another chapter in the long evolution of a post-colonial world. Get it? They are not us and Walmart and 7-11 aren't moving into Benghazi anytime soon.
Why? BECAUSE THEY JUST HAD A REVOLUTION AGAINST THEIR GOVERNMENT and won. A primary and unavoidable result of that is now the newly formed government doesn't have a military or national police presence so militias have taken over. Duh. And hey, don't like the resulting tribal, sectarian, and regional instability and internecine jousting? Bummer dude - but then you were the same guys screeching at the top of your lungs about Lockerbie and those damn Gaddafis forever.
And, as Maddow said, "Benghazi was an attack on us; not a scandal by us" (oh, and where was your ranting during Iran-Contragate?).
You have reduced yourself to such a simplistic black and white worldview as to be completely childish. And, hey, Iraq and Afghanistan have been a colossal f*#k-up of epic, monumental and historic proportions compared to Libya and was a genuinely treasonous conspiracy. Why aren't you folks on the right utterly enraged by those wars given they're still going on and Americans are still dying in them?
Get a f*#king grip dude, you're devolving into complete irrelevance.
|
|
apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
|
|
|
Nov 14, 2012 - 02:21pm PT
|
Ron, you have been so rabidly fixated and perseverating about Libya in the last several weeks that it's impossible to see it as anything more than partisan political opportunism.
Of course Libya deserves investigation. But your reaction to it is waaaaaay out of proportion to its scale.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Nov 14, 2012 - 02:34pm PT
|
The issue is you don't get it, you don't see the bigger picture anywhere and especially in North Africa and the Mideast. Nothing has been 'won' anywhere and all we did was stir up hornets nests across the region and are now furiously juggling as a result. Afghanistan? The northern warlords are reorganizing and rearming in the wake of our retreat. Why? And what does that mean?
Let me tell you. The Taliban came to power due to the abuses of the Warlords, when we leave it will be like we were never even there except now the Chinese own the place and both wars have benefited Iran enormously. In simpler words - a complete waste of time and geopolitical strategy failure of grand proportions with rippling effects across the Mideast. We spent 4-6 trillion of your dollars and the primary winners are Iran and China - so much so that you can almost make the case W, Cheney and Rumsfeld were Iranian or Chinese agents.
And that outcome is the direct price of the neocons trying to do an end run around the central issue of Palestinian / Israeli peace by instead f*#king around with fantasy 'dominos' elsewhere in Mideast rather than confronting the problem head on.
Don't like what you see in North Africa and the Mideast? Don't like an emboldened Iran? Don't like NDAA 2013 bill? Bummer dude - they are all outfalls and a direct result of the neocon strategy once they took over the Whitehouse as the Bush administration. We'll be cleaning up their mess for decades to come both over there and here at home.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Nov 14, 2012 - 02:48pm PT
|
"He fed the Libya revolt" - that's right, because once these babies go off you are either involved or irrelevant and irrelevant is not something you want to be once your find yourself juggling furiously. There was zero option in our response. Zero. Again, it's not about Libya, or Syria, or Iran, it's about all of them together and Libya is just the ripples hitting the other side of the tub.
Messy, no doubt - welcome to the real world. We as Americans either stick our heads in the sands and are thereby blinded, or we start to get a grip on things and stay out in front of the sh#t storm the Bush administration has unleashed which is exactly what we are and should be doing. And we'll be playing this little nightmare out again and again as the ripples wash back and forth over the region for at least the next decade or two so hitch up your panties - we're in it for the long haul now.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Nov 14, 2012 - 03:15pm PT
|
The policies were designed to aid the good when they fed the bad. Now we repeat it over and over- pretty much the definition of insanity.
We are NOT repeating it over and over in Libya, Syria, and most especially Iran. We are staying engage but cautious because at this point it's pretty damn hard to predict the future and there are no direct ways to intervene in what has been unleashed. Do you really think the events in Benghazi would have unfolded any differently under McCain? They wouldn't have - everything would be exactly as it today because - Obama or McCain - we are playing the hand dealt us by the Bush administration and the legacy of the neocon fantasy that all we needed to do was knock over one of those Mideast dominos and a whiteboy democracy would spread like wildfire.
The neocons were so utterly clueless it staggers the imagination and what's truly frightening is the remnants of their cadre were Romney's military and foreign policy advisers.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Nov 15, 2012 - 06:13pm PT
|
You're reading and quoting the John Birch Society and wonder why people think you're more than a tad hysterical and out of touch with reality?
|
|
froodish
Social climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Nov 15, 2012 - 08:08pm PT
|
The New American | Home
http://www.thenewamerican.com/
Magazine of the John Birch Society, providing in-depth reporting on U.S. and worldwide issues and events. Includes weekly features, back issue archive, and ...
Worth paying attention to your sources Ron. And if your google searches keep turning up hits like that on the top, you might want to question what your search terms are too.
|
|
froodish
Social climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Nov 15, 2012 - 08:39pm PT
|
Decimating the Military: Obama’s “Night of the Long Knives”?
Dude, you really expect something resembling discussion when you link to rubbish like that?
That article is a bunch of conjecture, rubbish assertions and quotes from right wing hacks.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Nov 15, 2012 - 08:41pm PT
|
Not links like that one which are from people who make a living on hysteria and hype. No one is firing admirals and generals as part of a conspiracy, Benghazi or otherwise. You just seem to be among the ranks highly prone to conspiracy theories, not sure why they appeal to you. But in general the folks I see so afflicted have a high general identification with being a victim.
|
|
froodish
Social climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Nov 15, 2012 - 08:45pm PT
|
Not to mention that the entire premise is fatally flawed. If Obama had dirt on military brass and wanted to use it to somehow influence the narrative of Benghazi, any leverage was lost when the story was made public.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Nov 15, 2012 - 09:17pm PT
|
Ron, Kip Ward was under investigation way before Benghazi and sometimes events just create a circumstance where cleaning house and reorganizing is the appropriate response of the day.
WASHINGTON (AP) Aug 17, 5:50 PM (ET) - The four-star general who headed U.S. Africa Command used military vehicles to shuttle his wife on shopping trips and to a spa and billed the government for a refueling stop overnight in Bermuda, where the couple stayed in a $750 suite, a Defense Department investigation has found.
A 99-page report alleges excessive unauthorized spending and travel costs for Gen. William "Kip" Ward, including lengthy stays at lavish hotels for Ward, his wife and his staff members, and the use of five-vehicle motorcades when he traveled to Washington.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120817/DA0NBPFO0.html
Keep in mind too that AFRICOM isn't exactly any general's idea of an ideal posting and it appears there may be issues with AFRICOM culture just as there are with CENTCOM culture. In fact, it seems like between Lackland, the Airforce Academy, and these commands there needs to be some command realignment.
But nothing whatsoever about these changes rises anywhere near the level of conspiracy.
|
|
froodish
Social climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Nov 15, 2012 - 09:19pm PT
|
Ron, from your original post:
Many Generals and and Admiral have been demoted and or removed in the LAST MONTH! ?? Excuses from sexual email innuendos to spending on trips have been used.. This is unprecedented - that so many TOP level military officials have been removed or demoted. In the light of upcoming wars, one can only be left to wonder why you would remove those with experience.
The story you linked to made assertions about Petraeus among others (viz: that his ouster had something to do with a coverup about Benghazi). . If that story isn't "public" I don't know what would satisfy your criteria.
Think about it. Let's say you are an evil Muslim president that has dirt on the head of the CIA (forget for a moment what an unusual switch of events that would be) and wish to use that to influence his testimony so as to affect the narrative. Do you make the story public?
|
|
dirtbag
climber
|
|
|
Nov 15, 2012 - 10:51pm PT
|
|
|
Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
|
|
|
Nov 18, 2012 - 12:15pm PT
|
|
|
Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
|
|
|
Nov 18, 2012 - 12:27pm PT
|
Ron...just think ...
|
|
Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
|
|
|
Nov 18, 2012 - 12:49pm PT
|
What i want to hear is how it was to be in the situation room watching live as two brave badass Americans fought to their deaths? Did they have snacks and drinks brought in?
Oh, is that how you did it as a LEO? You seem to know.
|
|
Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
|
|
|
Nov 18, 2012 - 12:53pm PT
|
Ron, you are such an unpatriotic chimp.
You would have been the one who would have fought tooth and nail against our own revolution. You would have been petitioning the king to wipe out the colonials, every man woman and child, and repopulating with loyal patriots.
It is none of your G*ddamn business what goes on in other countries, as their citizens attempt to break free from various dictators. Your continuing attempt to subjugate people as a slavemaster is the ugliest part of America. You appear to think that the worst thing to happen in our history was giving up slavery. You just want the slaves to be muslim.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!