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Shocker: Intelligence Analysts Say They Were Pressured to Downplay ISIS' Strength and Overstate Obama's Effectiveness Against Them

Anyone surprised?

They're the JV, you know. Obama said so. Now re-write your report to make them the JV.

Scandal-free administration, You Guys. Scandal-free.

Shane Harris and Nancy A. Yousef:

U.S. intelligence analysts keep saying that the American-led campaign against ISIS isn’t going so well. Their bosses keep telling them to think again about those conclusions.

Senior military and intelligence officials have inappropriately pressured U.S. terrorism analysts to alter their assessments about the strength of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, three sources familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast. Analysts have been pushed to portray the group as weaker than the analysts believe it actually is, according to these sources, and to paint an overly rosy picture about how well the U.S.-led effort to defeat the group is going.

Reports that have been deemed too pessimistic about the efficacy of the American-led campaign, or that have questioned whether a U.S.-trained Iraqi military can ultimately defeat ISIS, have been sent back down through the chain of command or haven’t been shared with senior policymakers, several analysts alleged.

In other instances, authors of such reports said they understood that their conclusions should fall within a certain spectrum. As a result, they self-censored their own views, they said, because they felt pressure to not reach conclusions far outside what those above them apparently believed.

"The phrase I use is the politicization of the intelligence community,”"retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told The Daily Beast...

It's truly incredible, and of course the major media aren't interested.

A president's minions direct their analysts to lie for political advantage, corrupting some of the most important machinery of United States security, intelligence.

But the media's okay with this -- their preferred story is also "Obama Triumphs." So they work hand in glove with him.

Posted by: Ace at 12:43 PM




Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Barack Obama is a stuttering clusterf*ck of a malignant traitor.

Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) - Fire-hooks and Rock Salt for sale at August 27, 2015 12:44 PM (kff5f)

2 Burn it down.
Scatter the stones.
Salt the earth where it stood.

Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) - Fire-hooks and Rock Salt for sale at August 27, 2015 12:45 PM (kff5f)

3 I'll get the others.

Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) - Fire-hooks and Rock Salt for sale at August 27, 2015 12:45 PM (kff5f)

4 Yo!

Posted by: Yo! at August 27, 2015 12:45 PM (q+zA9)

5 This goes hand in glove with the last thread. A large part of Europe's immigration crisis is derived from the failed states which we have let (Iraq) or caused (Libya) to fail.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at August 27, 2015 12:45 PM (JtwS4)

6 Solid B+.

Posted by: Chupacabras at August 27, 2015 12:46 PM (kZVsz)

7 This would make a good subject for a follow-up article by George Will.

Eh, who am I kidding.

Posted by: Ynot you say at August 27, 2015 12:46 PM (TFWFz)

8 Scandal-free administration, You Guys. Scandal-free.

Given that to be a scandal, something must first be publicly known... yeah, they're scandal free.

Corruption free? Not so much.
Failure free? Nuh-uh.
Scandal free? Absolutely.

MFM delenda est.

Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) - Fire-hooks and Rock Salt for sale at August 27, 2015 12:47 PM (kff5f)

9 The Jayvee team!

Posted by: Bevel Lemelisk at August 27, 2015 12:47 PM (fJ5wU)

10 Seriously, wouldn't you prefer a pessimistic view when talking about war?

Posted by: Chupacabras at August 27, 2015 12:47 PM (kZVsz)

11
Reports that have been deemed too pessimistic about the efficacy of the American-led campaign, or that have questioned whether a U.S.-trained Iraqi military can ultimately defeat ISIS, have been sent back down through the chain of command or

........
sounds positively Soviet

Posted by: Yo! at August 27, 2015 12:47 PM (q+zA9)

12 I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Ace for his benevolence, fairness, and mercy.

Please don't ban me. I like it here.

Posted by: Moderate Salami, weeping for our dead Republic at August 27, 2015 12:48 PM (/Ho8c)

13 the daily beast keeps trumping the nytimes

Posted by: artisanal 'ette at August 27, 2015 12:48 PM (qCMvj)

14 Those JV teams, always punching above their weight.

Posted by: Bete resigned to just watching the world burn at August 27, 2015 12:48 PM (Ojki1)

15 Lying liars who lie.

Posted by: John Doh at August 27, 2015 12:48 PM (XApGT)

16 "Effectiveness against ISIS?"

He's all but actively rooting for them. Is he fooling anyone? It's like he's on their side.

Posted by: Qoheleth at August 27, 2015 12:48 PM (iIzG7)

17
Reminds me a lot of that Vietnam situation.

No really, everything is just fine.

Posted by: GBruno at August 27, 2015 12:48 PM (u49WF)

18 Phew. Got out of the last thread just as Hector showed up.

Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That at August 27, 2015 12:48 PM (x3GpS)

19 7 This would make a good subject for a follow-up article by George Will.

Eh, who am I kidding.


There's a link between the decline of slacks and the smoking of marijuana! Don't deny it!

Posted by: George Will at August 27, 2015 12:48 PM (fJ5wU)

20 Seriously, wouldn't you prefer a pessimistic view when talking about war?

Posted by: Chupacabras at August 27, 2015 12:47 PM (kZVsz)


How about "realistic?" Because a "pessimistic view" is what brought about the real failures in Vietnam and Iraq (both times).

Posted by: AllenG (DedicatedTenther) - Fire-hooks and Rock Salt for sale at August 27, 2015 12:48 PM (kff5f)

21 So Baghdad Bob is now Obama's national security briefer? I admit it makes sense, but man - I so didn't see that coming.

Posted by: Mikey NTH - Stay Aghast of Events at the Outrage Outlet! at August 27, 2015 12:48 PM (hLRSq)

22
We're living in that stupid movie, what was it - the Truman show?

Except it is president boy-pants in the starring role.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 27, 2015 12:49 PM (HJ9LB)

23 who has the fucking hook? pull him off the God Damn stage

Posted by: phoenixgirl, i was born a rebel at August 27, 2015 12:49 PM (0O7c5)

24 "Anyone surprised?"


No.

Posted by: Ricardo Kill at August 27, 2015 12:49 PM (LA7Cm)

25 If I ignore the problem, it will go away.

Or at least I'll be long gone when it blows up in Hillary's face.

Posted by: Barack Obama at August 27, 2015 12:50 PM (E5UB0)

26 Maybe we shouldn't have elected a man whose middle name was Hussein, whose father and stepfather were Muslims and who referred to "my Muslim faith"?

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 27, 2015 12:50 PM (OSs/l)

27 Yeah, this has kind of been apparent since day one.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 12:50 PM (AkOaV)

28 22 An Earth sized Truman Show.

Posted by: Boss Moss at August 27, 2015 12:50 PM (DsveK)

29 The analysts' efficacy hasn't been the same since Marie Harf left. #BringBackHarf!

Posted by: Bruce Boehner at August 27, 2015 12:51 PM (E5UB0)

30 "My friends, you have nothing to fear from an Obama presidency."


Posted by: Moderate Salami, weeping for our dead Republic at August 27, 2015 12:51 PM (/Ho8c)

31 Obama's next speech will bring it all under control.

Posted by: LIV in a reality-proof bunker at August 27, 2015 12:51 PM (ZtFr+)

32 @alleng

I'm not sure I follow. By pessimistic view, I'm talking about overestimating your enemy's abilities.

Posted by: Chupacabras at August 27, 2015 12:51 PM (kZVsz)

33 "But the media's okay with this -- their preferred story is also "Obama Triumphs." So they work hand in glove with him."


Right up until ISIS conquers Damascus or Baghdad. Unexpectedly.

Posted by: Mikey NTH - Stay Aghast of Events at the Outrage Outlet! at August 27, 2015 12:51 PM (hLRSq)

34 Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 27, 2015 12:50 PM (OSs/l)

All that aside, I think we need to either
a) get serious and go to Shermanesque scorched earth (not my preferred option)
or
b) stop messing around in the Muslim world.

Because what we're doing is NOT WORKING and is not making the situation any more stable.

And personally I don't care if the Muslim populations in those countries have to live under brutal dictatorships. Because as we've discovered in the last decade or so, when the dictators go bye bye, jihadists fill the void.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 12:51 PM (AkOaV)

35 For a second there, Ace, I thought you had linked to a story about the BOOOOOSH administration pressuring the intelligence community...


Everything the Left accuses the Right of doing is just the Left revealing their plans.


Posted by: weft cut-loop at August 27, 2015 12:51 PM (Ck8hC)

36 Hey remember when they accused Bush of doing this with Iraq and WMDs (even though that's not what happened.)

Projection, it's not just a river in Egypt.

Posted by: tsrlbke PhD(c), rogue bioethicist at August 27, 2015 12:52 PM (tM4uk)

37 Right up until ISIS conquers Damascus or Baghdad. Unexpectedly.
Posted by: Mikey NTH - Stay Aghast of Events at the Outrage Outlet! at August 27, 2015 12:51 PM (hLRSq)

I think they'll go to Mecca before Baghdad or Damascus.

Two (religiously) unimportant cities surrounded by Shias?

Eh, why bother?

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 12:52 PM (AkOaV)

38 We can't believe a word out of that lying, corrupt admin.
Of course I'm not surprised.
I format fine but this browser updated (Mercury) and it looks like one sentence running. I apologize.

Posted by: Carol at August 27, 2015 12:52 PM (sj3Ax)

39 We're living in that stupid movie, what was it - the Truman show?



Groundhog Day.

Posted by: rickb223 at August 27, 2015 12:52 PM (O+0DS)

40 And yay won't that be awesome when the Saudi government looks like they're about to collapse.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 12:52 PM (AkOaV)

41
If the truth was told, there would be a call for some effective opposition, but since everything isis is just a minor problem, the govt can ignore it.

The slaughter will continue unabated, and when strong enough, Turkey and Europe will be in the cross hairs. And then they will ask for our help.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at August 27, 2015 12:52 PM (ODxAs)

42
What difference, at this point, does it make?1//11/1/!?!1!!?1/1?

Posted by: Hillary Clinton at August 27, 2015 12:52 PM (HSmrB)

43 "The totalitarian mind is like the schizophrenic mind; it has a contempt for reality. ... The totalitarian mind does not observe and verify its impressions of reality; it dictates to reality how it shall behave, it compels reality to conform to its fantasies."
-Joost Meerloo, The Rape of the Mind

Posted by: Rick Tingles at August 27, 2015 12:52 PM (PVcF3)

44 This sort of thing does not happen in a Republic, but it is routine in an Empire.

Posted by: Positive Waves at August 27, 2015 12:52 PM (MQEz6)

45 Maybe we shouldn't have elected a man whose middle
name was Hussein, whose father and stepfather were Muslims and who
referred to "my Muslim faith"?

Posted by: FenelonSpoke


You're just being religionist-ish or something.

But, you do make a good point--how could we possibly have known that this guy who was buddying up to the Iranians during his campaign would be so sympathetic to radical Muslims? No warning signs at all.

Posted by: Moderate Salami, weeping for our dead Republic at August 27, 2015 12:53 PM (/Ho8c)

46 I'm old enough to remember when the msm and the left used to be concerned when presidents were accused of manipulating intelligence.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 12:53 PM (OGm46)

47 I wonder if any of these analysts are blonde CIA types who spend their off time blowing low level ambassadors out by the dumpsters during State Department parties?

No kidding. This is the type of shit I think about.

Posted by: jwest at August 27, 2015 12:53 PM (Zs4uk)

48 12 I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Ace for his benevolence, fairness, and mercy.

Please don't ban me. I like it here.
Posted by: Moderate Salami, weeping for our dead Republic at August 27, 2015 12:48 PM (/Ho8c)

Ace is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I have ever known in my life.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 27, 2015 12:53 PM (2Ojst)

49 Boy, if we could just abandon reality entirely, that'd be the ticket. The only thing standing between me and wildest dreams is reality.

Posted by: The Great White Snark at August 27, 2015 12:53 PM (lGxTo)

50 Boy, if we could just abandon reality entirely, that'd be the ticket. The only thing standing between me and wildest dreams is reality.

Posted by: The Great White Snark at August 27, 2015 12:53 PM (lGxTo)

51 I can't wait for a Republican president. The press will wake up and their imaginations will run wild.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 27, 2015 12:54 PM (n6Nt0)

52 You know for all the uproar and rage the Leftists had at the outcome of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident and how the military and president supposedly lied to the American people... there sure are some quiet motherf*ckers out there today.

Posted by: Nevyan at August 27, 2015 12:54 PM (zxWyw)

53 The media's been more than happy to crow the success of "dozens" of airstrikes a month. I'm sure they'll be after this presently.

Posted by: Chupacabras at August 27, 2015 12:54 PM (kZVsz)

54 ABC News:
"IS Suicide Bombing Kills 2 Iraqi Army Generals in Anbar"
There goes the JV team again, those naughty boys......


Meanwhile:
That Obama guy he just ROCKS huh!


Posted by: RonUSA at August 27, 2015 12:54 PM (EaqMa)

55 At least this will discourage naive, kind hearted aid workers from going there and risking their lives.

Let the animals destroy themselves.

Posted by: Bruce Boehner at August 27, 2015 12:54 PM (E5UB0)

56 The Obama administration: all pot smoke and cocaine mirrors.

Posted by: Dang at August 27, 2015 12:54 PM (2oWD2)

57 Politicizing intelligence analysis to suit already decided policy is a betrayal of trust. Almost treasonous!

Posted by: Senator Barack Obama at August 27, 2015 12:54 PM (TxJGV)

58 The current political situation in the USA is so bad that the smart envy the stupid.

Posted by: V the K at August 27, 2015 12:54 PM (O7MnT)

59 get serious and go to Shermanesque scorched earth not my preferred option)

Not going to happen


b) stop messing around in the Muslim world.

In what sense? No military

Because the problem is here now and will continue to escalate unless we do something.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 27, 2015 12:55 PM (OSs/l)

60 Vacation was great! Thanks for asking!

Posted by: Emperor Clusterfuck I at August 27, 2015 12:55 PM (YFFpo)

61 Something something lied

Something something died

Posted by: alexthechick - Yeah I give up at August 27, 2015 12:55 PM (mf5HN)

62 who was buddying up to the Iranians during his campaign would be so sympathetic to radical Muslims? No warning signs at all.
Posted by: Moderate Salami, weeping for our dead Republic at August 27, 2015 12:53 PM (/Ho8c)

Well, I get what he's trying to do there.

He's just doing it in a way where he talks like a fag and his shit is all retarded.

But we need to really have a "national discussion" about foreign policy. This schizophrenic shit has got to stop. We're fighting Sunni jihadists in Iraq, arming them in Syria, acting as their airforce in Libya, supporting them in Egypt over our military allies, droning them in Yemen, now arming said Sunnis in Yemen to fight the Houthi...

It is a GOD DAMN mess. And the only common thread is us sticking our fucking noses in to everything then saying "huh. Wonder why that didn't work out as planned?"

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 12:55 PM (AkOaV)

63
Or at least I'll be long gone when it blows up in Hillary's face.

Posted by: Barack Obama at August 27, 2015 12:50 PM (E5UB0)

--------------------------------

But you promised not to do that in my face....

Posted by: Hillary Clinton at August 27, 2015 12:56 PM (HSmrB)

64 "ISIS is moving on Damascus, Mr. President. Assad's forces are falling back through the city and are trying to reach the Russian base at Tarsus."


"All is fine; Steiner will break through and relieve Damascus."


"Mr. President..."


"Mr. President. Steiner radioed - he is escorting refugees to Tarsus. He isn't coming."

Posted by: Mikey NTH - Stay Aghast of Events at the Outrage Outlet! at August 27, 2015 12:56 PM (hLRSq)

65 It never fails to amaze me that the chief job requirement for being the SCOAMF's spokesman is the ability to imitate Kevin Bacon as Chip Diller in Animal House, insisting that "All is well! All is well!"

Posted by: Qoheleth at August 27, 2015 12:56 PM (iIzG7)

66 It should read that they TRIED to downplay the ISIS gains. They TRIED to tell us that Baraka's strategy was working.

Anyone paying half attention to world affairs knew what was happening from the beginning.

Posted by: Soona at August 27, 2015 12:56 PM (P25Hh)

67 If what we're seeing is the 'good' spin how F'ed up is it really?

Posted by: RWC - Team BOHICA at August 27, 2015 12:56 PM (fWAjv)

68 Vacation was great! Thanks for asking!


Posted by: Emperor Clusterfuck I


If the dereliction of duty wasn't so egregious and the consequences so serious, his shiftlessness and sloth would be really funny.

Posted by: Moderate Salami, weeping for our dead Republic at August 27, 2015 12:57 PM (/Ho8c)

69 61 Something something lied

Something something died
Posted by: alexthechick - Yeah I give up at August 27, 2015 12:55 PM (mf5HN)

AtC, I believe the phrase you're looking for is
"Clinton lied,
Hillary cried.

Bush lied,
soldiers died."

Usually you'll find that above the "ENDLESS THIS WAR" bumper sticker on a Prius.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 12:57 PM (AkOaV)

70 The slaughter will continue unabated, and when strong enough, Turkey and Europe will be in the cross hairs. And then they will ask for our help.
Posted by: Guy Mohawk at August 27, 2015 12:52 PM (ODxAs)


The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll whisper "no."

Posted by: Rorschach at August 27, 2015 12:57 PM (Ojki1)

71 Every time I just go "well of course they did."

Can't even get outrage going any more.

Oh, a Democrat did something bad, let's ignore the hell out of it says the MFM.

Posted by: blaster at August 27, 2015 12:58 PM (EMtSF)

72 Bush lied,
soldiers died."

Usually you'll find that above the "ENDLESS THIS WAR" bumper sticker on a Prius.
Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 12:57 PM (AkOaV)

I saw a Prius the other day with the license tag "JRR TLKN" and a "Not all who wander are lost" bumper sticker.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 27, 2015 12:58 PM (2Ojst)

73 7 This would make a good subject for a follow-up article by George Will.

Eh, who am I kidding.
Posted by: Ynot you say at August 27, 2015 12:46 PM (TFWFz)

Yeah, will called Trump's followers "Trumpkins" and invoked George Wallace this morning. That's worked well so far.

When are they going to get that its not Trump driving this, its anger at Boehner, McConnell, Bush (and George Will)?

Posted by: duke at August 27, 2015 12:59 PM (mDxGf)

74 In what sense? No military

Because the problem is here now and will continue to escalate unless we do something.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 27, 2015 12:55 PM (OSs/l)

Continue to escalate in what way?

This is the default nature of the muslim world, specifically the Arab world in the ME and N Africa.

This is how it has been for over 1000 years, even pre-Islam.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 12:59 PM (AkOaV)

75 I bet the next GOP president drops the ball and suddenly ISIS gains bloom. Stupid next GOP president.

Posted by: bestie21 at August 27, 2015 12:59 PM (fIz+0)

76 So what haven't they lied about?

Posted by: donna at August 27, 2015 12:59 PM (hUdMz)

77 One might say that 'the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.'

Posted by: Grump928(C) at August 27, 2015 12:59 PM (rwI+c)

78 So the phrase "nothing to see, move along" Now takes on a new meaning.


Policy

Posted by: Nip Sip at August 27, 2015 12:59 PM (0FSuD)

79 Think the Saudis can afford a nuke? After all, we just agreed that everyone in the highly stable Middle East should have one.

I wonder if you will be able to see 30,000 sq miles of glass from space?

Posted by: Innagadadavida, baby at August 27, 2015 12:59 PM (beJFh)

80 Say what you want about President Bush, and many of you do here, he:

A) Loved the US Military and the Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen who serve.

B) He ask for the straight truth from the Military and usually went 100% with their advise.

This fuck in the White House is worse than LBJ and he is ruining the Military not only by the PC crap he is pulling, and not only by slashing the defense budget to the bone and below, but by politicizing the Pentagon.

May he die a terrible painful death in hell for that.

Not that I have an opinion or anything

Posted by: Nevergiveup at August 27, 2015 12:59 PM (gf8BH)

81 Um, isn't the Iran Treaty supposed to bring peace?

That's what it says on my cereal box.

Posted by: Positive Waves at August 27, 2015 12:59 PM (MQEz6)

82 It is a G*D D@MN mess. And the only common thread is
us sticking our fucking noses in to everything then saying "huh. Wonder
why that didn't work out as planned?"

Posted by: mynewhandle


Indeed. I'm convinced some of that is raw incompetence, but also that some of this chaos-sowing and degradation of our international image is intentional. And people should be in jail for that.


Posted by: Moderate Salami, weeping for our dead Republic at August 27, 2015 01:00 PM (/Ho8c)

83 We're living in that stupid movie, what was it - the Truman show?

-
I don't see Barky as Truman, more like Liesalotboi.

Posted by: The Great White Snark at August 27, 2015 01:00 PM (lGxTo)

84 Global Warming is much worse than ISIS.

Posted by: Leonero at August 27, 2015 01:00 PM (sVUKP)

85 46 I'm old enough to remember when the msm and the left used to be concerned when presidents were accused of manipulating intelligence.
Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 12:53 PM (OGm46)
----------

Happy seventh birthday!

Posted by: Rick Tingles at August 27, 2015 01:00 PM (PVcF3)

86
But you promised not to do that in my face....

Posted by: Hillary Clinton at August 27, 2015 12:56 PM (HSmrB

We didn't say you had to swallow
We just said we were going to do it in your face.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 27, 2015 01:00 PM (n6Nt0)

87 Doesn't the same report also say that Syria will fall within months?

There is something I read that said such.

Of course, if it does, it will be--wait for it--"unexpected."


Posted by: RoyalOil at August 27, 2015 01:00 PM (ZvKdv)

88 I think I need a new iPad. It always wants to shut off? It started doing this today.
Sorry to go OT so soon.

Posted by: Carol at August 27, 2015 01:00 PM (sj3Ax)

89 I'm old enough to remember when the msm and the left used to be concerned when presidents were accused of manipulating intelligence.
Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 12:53 PM (OGm46)

Only R Presidents

Posted by: Nevergiveup at August 27, 2015 01:01 PM (gf8BH)

90 Anyone have a map of what they actually own now? I've been confused by coverage:

"ISIS stunningly defeated by the almighty one and his allies. In other news ISIS took Falujah this morning thanks to your racist attitudes."

Posted by: bestie21 at August 27, 2015 01:01 PM (fIz+0)

91 If what we're seeing is the 'good' spin how F'ed up is it really?

Posted by: RWC - Team BOHICA at August 27, 2015 12:56 PM (fWAjv)



Look how well "spinning the news" worked for Imperial Japan.

Posted by: Mikey NTH - Stay Aghast of Events at the Outrage Outlet! at August 27, 2015 01:01 PM (hLRSq)

92 81 Iran has agreed to self inspect their own nuclear sites.

Posted by: Boss Moss at August 27, 2015 01:01 PM (DsveK)

93 They claim it under Republican presidents, so that they can do it under Democratic presidents. Do they really plan this far ahead, or is it subconscious?

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at August 27, 2015 01:01 PM (2lndx)

94 Before or after any of Will's anti-Trumpian diatribes has he yet mentioned that his wife works for Walker?

Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That at August 27, 2015 01:01 PM (x3GpS)

95 Indeed. I'm convinced some of that is raw incompetence, but also that some of this chaos-sowing and degradation of our international image is intentional. And people should be in jail for that.


Posted by: Moderate Salami, weeping for our dead Republic at August 27, 2015 01:00 PM (/Ho8c)

Sure, sure, whatever the reason is (I think it has a lot to do with money, contracts, being seen as "doing something", and just the haphazard nature of the world), it's clearly not working.

We are NOT helping the situation any by putting American blood and treasure on the line to try to... do what? I'm not even sure anymore what our goal in the Muslim world is. But we're certainly not making anything any better over there for us (the important part of the equation) or for the people living there.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:01 PM (AkOaV)

96 Look how well "spinning the news" worked for Imperial Japan.

And Baghdad Bob...

Posted by: donna at August 27, 2015 01:02 PM (hUdMz)

97 Continue to escalate in what way?

Escalate here in the US-More terrorist attacks and major ones regularly. If you keep letting Muslims in and do not monitor radical mosques a lot more things will go BOOM!

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 27, 2015 01:02 PM (OSs/l)

98 94 Before or after any of Will's anti-Trumpian diatribes has he yet mentioned that his wife works for Walker?
Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That at August 27, 2015 01:01 PM (x3GpS)

Yeah, every article of his now says "full disclosure: my wife works for Scott Walker" after Trump called him out on it about 100 times.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:02 PM (AkOaV)

99 I'm old enough to remember when the msm and the left used to be concerned when presidents were accused of manipulating intelligence.
Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 12:53 PM (OGm46)

Just like the State Department and Hillary are investigating themselves, and the IRS investigated itself. I mean what could possibly go wrong?

Posted by: Nevergiveup at August 27, 2015 01:03 PM (gf8BH)

100 At some point, spin becomes impossible. Trust me, I know.

Posted by: Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf aka Bagdad Bob at August 27, 2015 01:03 PM (XHR9b)

101 94 Before or after any of Will's anti-Trumpian diatribes has he yet mentioned that his wife works for Walker?

Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That at August 27, 2015 01:01 PM (x3GpS
=========================

Most every time. Why?

Posted by: MTF at August 27, 2015 01:03 PM (TxJGV)

102 I guess I should be upset about this, but that crease is so glorious.

Posted by: David Brooks at August 27, 2015 01:03 PM (OD2ni)

103 Escalate here in the US-More terrorist attacks and major ones regularly. If you keep letting Muslims in and do not monitor radical mosques a lot more things will go BOOM!
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 27, 2015 01:02 PM (OSs/l)

Oh, well that's a separate issue. I'm not talking about Muslims in US, I'm talking about Muslims in the middle east and north africa.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:03 PM (AkOaV)

104 Look how well "spinning the news" worked for Imperial Japan.

And Baghdad Bob...


And George Stephanopolous!

Oh wait...

Posted by: blaster at August 27, 2015 01:03 PM (EMtSF)

105 "There is always war," he said. "And always protesters. This is the way of the world. In the last administration we interviewed some; perhaps we shall again in the next."

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at August 27, 2015 01:03 PM (2lndx)

106 >>"The phrase I use is the politicization of the intelligence community,"


It's the politicization of EVERYTHING.

You cannot believe anything the WH puts out - not labor statistics, not inflation, not immigration...nothing.

Posted by: Lizzy at August 27, 2015 01:03 PM (NOIQH)

107 I wonder if you will be able to see 30,000 sq miles of glass from space?

Will the sunlight reflecting off of it would melt the space station?

Hey, maybe we can use it to signal aliens.


Posted by: HR needs cheeseburgers at August 27, 2015 01:03 PM (/kI1Q)

108 And personally I don't care if the Muslim
populations in those countries have to live under brutal dictatorships.
Because as we've discovered in the last decade or so, when the dictators
go bye bye, jihadists fill the void.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 12:51 PM (AkOaV)

We discovered that when Carter betrayed the Shah in 1977.

Posted by: kathysaysso at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM (fMQoG)

109 Perhaps our first tactic in defeating ISIS should be to quit supplying them with money and weapons.

Posted by: Grump928(C) at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM (rwI+c)

110 >>>This fuck in the White House is worse than LBJ and he is ruining the Military not only by the PC crap he is pulling, and not only by slashing the defense budget to the bone and below, but by politicizing the Pentagon

Gays
Transgenders
Throwing the book at servicemen & drumming them out
Workplace violence failure to arm servicemen
Gutting the numbers of armed forces
Gutting the budget


Yup, can't see anything going wrong here. Nope not at all


/////

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM (n6Nt0)

111 What difference, at this point, does it make?

Posted by: Hillary Clinton at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM (UdFl3)

112 We didn't say you had to swallow
We just said we were going to do it in your face.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 27, 2015 01:00 PM (n6Nt0)


If you think they get mad when you cum in their mouth, just try getting a little in their eye.

Posted by: jwest at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM (Zs4uk)

113 Will does usually include that his wife works for Walker & I skip them.

Posted by: Carol at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM (sj3Ax)

114 We are NOT helping the situation any by putting
American blood and treasure on the line to try to... do what? I'm not
even sure anymore what our goal in the Muslim world is. But we're
certainly not making anything any better over there for us (the
important part of the equation) or for the people living there.

Posted by: mynewhandle


Agree entirely. It just ain't working. In fact, all of our recent involvement has made things demonstrably worse.

Posted by: Moderate Salami, weeping for our dead Republic at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM (/Ho8c)

115 Why go halfway? As long as we're making up shit, why not have the analysts conclude that we've totally destroyed ISIS, and that they're now admirers of The One, whose transcendant wisdom and beneficence helped them see the error of their ways?

Posted by: Jay Guevara at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM (oKE6c)

116 There was No Yellow Cake!!!!

Posted by: Joe Wilson backed by the MSM at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM (NOIQH)

117 Si I'm not a fan of a lot military intervention, but we should have stayed in Iraq longer. Pulling out too soon to win points from his base was a big mistake.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM (OSs/l)

118 I think it's a shame how ISIS is allowed to destroy ruins and artifacts of ancient civilizations--in effect--destroy the past--without fear of reprisal from the West. This is all on Obama, and I can't help but think back to his fake Greek columns. Well, fake Greek and Roman columns (and temples, statues, etc.) are about all we're going to have after Obama is out of office....

Posted by: JoeF. at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM (KqE51)

119 73,

Will et all are the kind of idiots who don't recognize what's happening even as they are being lines up along the wall.

Posted by: Brandon In Baton Rouge at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM (MOr4F)

120 The initial reports failed to take into account how well-creased the President's pants are.

Posted by: David Brooks at August 27, 2015 01:05 PM (nFdGS)

121 Posted by: bestie21 at August 27, 2015 01:01 PM (fIz+0)

Iraq is mostly shitty desert.

So ISIS controls certain cities.

but most of the country is no mans land.

Which makes it difficult to map out "who owns what" especially since the "who" is typically the local tribe who controls the city in some kind of loose alliance with ISIS.

Tribal politics is confusing as fuck and unless you really immerse yourself in it (and I don't have the time or patience), it's difficult to follow exactly what alliances and what agreements are in place and what they actually mean.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:05 PM (AkOaV)

122 Boy, is Obama really going to be angry when he reads about this in the newspapers!

Posted by: rebel flounder at August 27, 2015 01:05 PM (Vf5rR)

123 There were no WMD's in Iraq!!!

Posted by: The MSM and every Lefty pundit at August 27, 2015 01:05 PM (NOIQH)

124 I wonder if you will be able to see 30,000 sq miles of glass from space?
Posted by: Innagadadavida, baby at August 27, 2015 12:59 PM (beJFh)

Imagine the global warming screaming after that happens from the left.

The human loss will be ignored or used to say why the US should just get rid of all our nukes now judging by what happens after every shooting these days.

Posted by: Rorschach at August 27, 2015 01:05 PM (Ojki1)

125 Global Warming is much worse than ISIS.

Posted by: Leonero

I saw Global Warming cut the head off a Polar Bear.

Posted by: Dang at August 27, 2015 01:05 PM (2oWD2)

126 You mean leftists lie to make their chief leftist look good?

Posted by: Mindy, soon to be "Emmie" at August 27, 2015 01:05 PM (27veP)

127 >>>You cannot believe anything the WH puts out - not labor statistics, not inflation, not immigration...nothing.
Posted by: Lizzy at August 27, 2015 01:0

Exceptions would be T-time and where they are headed off on their next paid vacation.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 27, 2015 01:05 PM (n6Nt0)

128 116 There was No Yellow Cake!!!!
Posted by: Joe Wilson backed by the MSM at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM (NOIQH)

But plenty of mint tea and crumpets.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 27, 2015 01:05 PM (2Ojst)

129 The MSM will bring back grim milestones reports.

They have been absent for over six years.

Posted by: Positive Waves at August 27, 2015 01:05 PM (MQEz6)

130 79 Think the Saudis can afford a nuke? After all, we just agreed that everyone in the highly stable Middle East should have one.
=======================

I think the story being told was they paid the cost of Pakistani development in return for getting nukes when needed. That sort of says they already paid for it, if its true.

Posted by: MTF at August 27, 2015 01:06 PM (TxJGV)

131 There was No Yellow Cake!!!!
Posted by: Joe Wilson backed by the MSM at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM

Yes, and I miss the daily "grim milestone" body count the media did when Bush was President....

Posted by: donna at August 27, 2015 01:06 PM (hUdMz)

132 Didja see Hilldog compare the Rethug candidates to ISIS based on their treatment of women?

Posted by: The Great White Snark at August 27, 2015 01:06 PM (lGxTo)

133 It's the politicization of EVERYTHING.



You cannot believe anything the WH puts out - not labor statistics, not inflation, not immigration...nothing.

Posted by: Lizzy at August 27, 2015 01:03 PM (NOIQH)


Exactly.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at August 27, 2015 01:06 PM (oKE6c)

134 Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:03 PM (AkOaV)

Yes, I realize that. It was, however, what Ii was talking about. :^)

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 27, 2015 01:06 PM (OSs/l)

135 129 The MSM will bring back grim milestones reports.

They have been absent for over six years.

Beat Me to it... good times...

Posted by: donna at August 27, 2015 01:06 PM (hUdMz)

136
Tribal politics is confusing as fuck and unless you really immerse yourself in it (and I don't have the time or patience), it's difficult to follow exactly what alliances and what agreements are in place and what they actually mean.
Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:05 PM (AkOaV

A polite way to say, "Kill them all and let God sort them out"?

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 27, 2015 01:07 PM (n6Nt0)

137 Yes, and I miss the daily "grim milestone" body count the media did when Bush was President....
Posted by: donna at August 27, 2015 01:06 PM (hUdMz)



It's being kept by the homeless, who are in Witness Protection until a Republican is in the White House.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at August 27, 2015 01:07 PM (oKE6c)

138 It's not just that the press isn't adversarial toward Obama. Ignoring bad news is the most insidious type of water-carrying. The idea of keeping important information from the voters is anathema to journalism. You can't even call what most of these people are doing "journalism."

Posted by: duke at August 27, 2015 01:07 PM (mDxGf)

139 Agree entirely. It just ain't working. In fact, all of our recent involvement has made things demonstrably worse.
Posted by: Moderate Salami, weeping for our dead Republic at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM (/Ho8c)

I'm not trying to be inflammatory by "going there" since saying that offends people, but at the very least, I think we can all agree that our interventions have not *helped* the situation.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:07 PM (AkOaV)

140 We knew there was political influence of intelligence after Benghazi. There's an email trail.

NO ONE CARES.

It's politics 24/7 now. The ONLY thing that matters is what helps Dems and what hurts anyone else, and in effect, helping Dems.

They control the narrative.

Posted by: Tommy V at August 27, 2015 01:07 PM (SRQwr)

141 off topic but interesting: from WZ: protest we shall much

MSNBC Demotes Al Sharpton From 5 Days To One, New Show Airs Sunday Mornings At 8:00 AM

Posted by: mallfly at August 27, 2015 01:07 PM (qSIlh)

142 >>>but most of the country is no mans land.

Sounds like paradise on earth.

Posted by: Caitlyn Jenner at August 27, 2015 01:07 PM (E5UB0)

143 Perhaps our first tactic in defeating ISIS should be to quit supplying them with money and weapons.

I'm mildly surprised the "moar welfare, less war" crowd hasn't picked up on that yet. Oh, wait, it's rayciss crazy talk. O_o

Posted by: HR needs cheeseburgers at August 27, 2015 01:07 PM (/kI1Q)

144 At this point in time, this is kind of like citing a bank robber for running a red light.

Posted by: Jacob's Step Stool at August 27, 2015 01:07 PM (VNgld)

145
Not the first time (duh) that the intel process has been influenced by policy preferences or politics. But there are different sorts of influence, and different results, hard to generalize. The Team A/Team B episode over estimates of Soviet military capability and intentions arose from a "politicization" of the intel community itself, by itself, over time, on one central question. Not at all a simple case of top-down distortion.

But this seems like a much more pedestrian case of "give us what we want/need".

Funny. The ludicrous and desperate Senate Intel Comm. Democrat attempts to put meat on the bones of "Bush distorted Iraq intel!" came to nothing (well, they did complete the degradation and discrediting of yet another entity that actually enjoyed some reputation for integrity).

Two (2) Parliamentary inquiries into similar charges in the UK found .... that in fact *the BBC* had lied, and the Iraq intel estimates were reasonable and professionally done. Parliament also found that the British intel assessment of Iraqi nuclear material activities in Africa that led to the "16 words" in Bush's famous speech were "well founded", after a thorough review.

Yet - even in places like this - one sees many many people parroting the most stupid, discredited NPR-level memes about intel manipulation.

Posted by: rhomboid at August 27, 2015 01:08 PM (QDnY+)

146 Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 27, 2015 01:04 PM (OSs/l)

You have yet failed to grasp that he did that on purpose and not to please his "base".

Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That at August 27, 2015 01:08 PM (x3GpS)

147 This internal rot which the Obama cult have created is most evident in the quantitative econometrics.

All of the once hard numbers according to which the federal government operates -- the spending numbers, the debt numbers, the GDP numbers, the unemployment numbers -- have all been deliberately gamed to where they are no longer fit for purpose. For Pete's sake, they aren't even _keeping_ the debt numbers any longer. The totals haven't been updated in months.

As a result, the next President is going to face a situation analogous to flying a plane at night in a thunderstorm, with untrustworthy instrumentation.

Posted by: torquewrench at August 27, 2015 01:08 PM (noWW6)

148 Nowadays, I wouldn't trust the NIST telephone time-of-day service to tell me the correct time.

Posted by: Chupacabras at August 27, 2015 01:08 PM (kZVsz)

149 I saw Global Warming cut the head off a gay Polar Bear.


Posted by: Dang at August 27, 2015 01:05 PM (2oWD2)

FIFY.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at August 27, 2015 01:08 PM (oKE6c)

150 "Clinton lied,

Hillary cried.



Bush lied,

soldiers died."



Usually you'll find that above the "ENDLESS THIS WAR" bumper sticker on a Prius.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 12:57 PM (AkOaV)

Let's finish it off:
"ObamaSuicide"

Posted by: kathysaysso at August 27, 2015 01:08 PM (fMQoG)

151 They are the JV.... but we've sent an NFL Coach to try to make a Pop Warner team of 8 year old girls, who don't even want to play football... to beat them.


I postulate you could take the 1st Armored, and 1st Cav... do NOT spread them out but keep them as major combat formations... use the Pre positioned tanks in Saudi...

Send one up the Tigris... one up the Euphrates...

Clean out ISIS combat troops...

Use actual WAR TIME Rules of Engagement like we did in Storm, or the taking of Iraq....

Point out to Iran, that these formations could EASILY turn East... so behave...

We are the Masters of Large scale war... use that to instill the Fear and Respect America needs on the world stage....

Posted by: BB Wolf at August 27, 2015 01:08 PM (qh617)

152
In many posts about this WH, we get to ask "if you were trying to destroy the US what would you be doing differently?"

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at August 27, 2015 01:08 PM (ODxAs)

153 >>We are NOT helping the situation any by putting
American blood and treasure on the line to try to... do what? I'm not
even sure anymore what our goal in the Muslim world is. But we're
certainly not making anything any better over there for us (the
important part of the equation) or for the people living there.

The problem we face is that we as a country are not prepared to face the fact that in order to help really transform this region it is going to take a lot more consistent engagement. The left doesn't care about that as was demonstrated by Obama pulling troops out of Iraq not for any strategic reason, just for domestic political purposes.

Iraq was not ready to stand on it's own completely so the subsequent disaster was not a surprise. We're either going to do what is necessary or we are going to face the consequences. Running and hiding is not an option.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 01:08 PM (OGm46)

154 A polite way to say, "Kill them all and let God sort them out"?
Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 27, 2015 01:07 PM (n6Nt0)

No, I'm just saying we should ignore them as best we can. Let al Baghdadi do his caliphate thing and let the people in the ME sort it out.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:08 PM (AkOaV)

155 O/T (but in the bestest way): the Blue Angels just arrived for this weekend's air show!!!

Posted by: AltonJackson at August 27, 2015 01:09 PM (ZQfW9)

156 Worth noting: In high school hoops, Obama struggled against JV teams on a regular basis.

Posted by: ZBBMcFate at August 27, 2015 01:09 PM (Hj9yW)

157 I think it's a shame how ISIS is allowed to destroy ruins and artifacts of ancient civilizations

-
Yet we have to.wear gloves to pick up.a Koran.

Posted by: The Great White Snark at August 27, 2015 01:09 PM (lGxTo)

158 . You can't even call what most of these people are doing "journalism."

Posted by: duke


They are partisans with a byline.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at August 27, 2015 01:09 PM (Ck8hC)

159 Rush said Biden (thought it was privately) doesn't think he has it to run for WH.

Posted by: Carol at August 27, 2015 01:09 PM (sj3Ax)

160 Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That at August 27, 2015 01:08 PM (x3GpS)

No, I didn't fail to grasp that. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 27, 2015 01:09 PM (OSs/l)

161 148 Nowadays, I wouldn't trust the NIST telephone time-of-day service to tell me the correct time.
Posted by: Chupacabras at August 27, 2015 01:08 PM (kZVsz)




So that's why Obongo is always late for press conferences. Per NIST, he's on time; we're the ones who are off-base.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at August 27, 2015 01:09 PM (oKE6c)

162 The human loss will be ignored or used to say why the US should just get rid of all our nukes now judging by what happens after every shooting these days.

Posted by: Rorschach at August 27, 2015 01:05 PM (Ojki1)


I have some ideas on where we can get rid of them....

Posted by: Mikey NTH - Stay Aghast of Events at the Outrage Outlet! at August 27, 2015 01:09 PM (hLRSq)

163
MSNBC Demotes Al Sharpton From 5 Days To One, New Show Airs Sunday Mornings At 8:00 AM
Posted by: mallfly at August 27, 2015 01:07 PM (qSIlh)

Oh yippee!!! Now I know I'll set the alarm clock for early Sunday morning. He'll be on 7AM CST. Woot woot.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 27, 2015 01:09 PM (n6Nt0)

164 Sally Kohn Roanoke Killer Acted Out A Sense Of Victimization I Have No Reason To Believe Not Justified


Weasel Zippers

She is a certifiable nasty scrunt with out a soul

Posted by: Nevergiveup at August 27, 2015 01:09 PM (gf8BH)

165 143 Perhaps our first tactic in defeating ISIS should be to quit supplying them with money and weapons.

*shuffles papers, glares angrily at you*

Posted by: John McCain at August 27, 2015 01:09 PM (fJ5wU)

166 "Hey, maybe we can use it to signal aliens."

I can do that for a lot less money - just build some flashing signs at San Diego and El Paso facing south, saying "TURN AROUND AND GO BACK HOME."

Or were you talking about something else? <ducks, grinning wildly>

Posted by: Qoheleth at August 27, 2015 01:09 PM (iIzG7)

167 So if the intelligence communities , one of the most impotant function of an actual nation are willing to be political ACTIVISTS for this administration whether by cowardice or ideology why should we assume all agencies aren't the same.
Perhaps agencies like nsa are actually also politicized and their function not actually against terrorism from the outside but those within america that disagree with this implementation of left policies pretty much across the board in govt?

I mean why do we keep hearing , We didn't know what was going on in in that little country over there, and so we misjudged our response. when anyone actually reading papers from other countries Did know.

hope this comment made sense. i'm a little (alot) tired

Posted by: willow at August 27, 2015 01:10 PM (nqBYe)

168 The problem we face is that we as a country are not prepared to face the fact that in order to help really transform this region it is going to take a lot more consistent engagement. The left doesn't care about that as was demonstrated by Obama pulling troops out of Iraq not for any strategic reason, just for domestic political purposes.

Iraq was not ready to stand on it's own completely so the subsequent disaster was not a surprise. We're either going to do what is necessary or we are going to face the consequences. Running and hiding is not an option.
Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 01:08 PM (OGm46)

so in other words, we just need to get better at the whole "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" thing?

There is no way that we are going to transform the middle east. Every empire before us has tried, and none have succeeded in any long term "transformations."

Most, like the Ottomans, just settled for putting heads on pikes leading in towns when the natives got restless. We don't even have the stomach to do that.

This is an unfixable situation (from the outside at least) and there is no reason for us to take on the role of trying to "transform the middle east."

We get nothing out of it.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:10 PM (AkOaV)

169 159 Rush said Biden (thought it was privately) doesn't think he has it to run for WH.
Posted by: Carol at August 27, 2015 01:09 P

Maybe he can just walk fast.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 27, 2015 01:10 PM (n6Nt0)

170 164 Sally Kohn Roanoke Killer Acted Out A Sense Of Victimization I Have No Reason To Believe Not Justified


By two small station reporters?

Posted by: donna at August 27, 2015 01:10 PM (hUdMz)

171 You just know something like this is done throughout this administration. Everything is a lie.

Posted by: Bosk at August 27, 2015 01:11 PM (n2K+4)

172
Obambi downplayed the threat.

President Trump would take the problem deadly seriously.



Posted by: Trump Super-Fan at August 27, 2015 01:12 PM (l2dSQ)

173 Sally Kohn Roanoke Killer Acted Out A Sense Of Victimization I Have No Reason To Believe Not Justified

Whoo Hoo, Sally. Let's basically condone murder. That's reprehensible.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 27, 2015 01:12 PM (OSs/l)

174 171 You just know something like this is done throughout this administration. Everything is a lie.

I would like to think that the lies will catch up with Him someday, but I'm not holding my breath...

Posted by: donna at August 27, 2015 01:12 PM (hUdMz)

175
newhandle, you are comprehensively wrong - but your reasoning perfectly mirrors why there is no point in even trying any more. The country is now unserious, esp. about the most serious matters. Any foreign policy situation that takes longer than 3 weeks to resolve, or can be mau-mau'd by the "press" and a Democratic Party that's lost its mind - that would be all the important ones - is now politically unsustainable.

Posted by: rhomboid at August 27, 2015 01:12 PM (QDnY+)

176 There, over by the well, is a rare moderate Muslim. Let's watch as Jim tries to get a little closer.

- Marlin Perkins on the last episode of Wild Kingdom

Posted by: The Great White Snark at August 27, 2015 01:13 PM (lGxTo)

177 But Bush cooked the intelligence for the Iraq war, despite zero evidence uncovered by Dem operatives looking for 10 years

Posted by: West at August 27, 2015 01:13 PM (GjeLd)

178 when the dictators go bye bye, jihadists fill the void

There are ways to help the non-jihadists form governments. Iraq was an extreme example; if we hadn't given up, they probably would have progressed even further.

But this president seems hell-bent on doing everything to suppress democracy activists and raise up the jihadists. Whether it's waiting until the moderate rebels in Libya were dead before intervening, or abandoning pro-democracy activists in Iran in order to give the dictators nuclear weapons under the guise of not giving them nuclear weapons, he's all the evils of detente and pragmatism turned up to 11.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at August 27, 2015 01:13 PM (2lndx)

179 Well, if Joey Choo-Choo won't run, who will fill the Democrat ballot line?

Of course, I'm assuming Hillary will be sharing recipes with all her new friends a Lewisburg and won't be available.

Posted by: MTF at August 27, 2015 01:13 PM (TxJGV)

180 >>I think it's a shame how ISIS is allowed to destroy ruins and artifacts of ancient civilizations

Had to explain this to my son, who commented it was stupid because the people who built those are already dead. ISIS hates us so much they don't want to kill us, they want to destroy our ancestors, too - want to wipe out all evidence we ever existed.

It's evil and all those people who were upset by the destruction of Iraq's antiquities under Bush are now silent as ISIS and MB are wiping out Western civilization, past and present.

Posted by: Lizzy at August 27, 2015 01:13 PM (NOIQH)

181 173 Sally Kohn Roanoke Killer Acted Out A Sense Of Victimization I Have No Reason To Believe Not Justified

Whoo Hoo, Sally. Let's basically condone murder. That's reprehensible.


You notice how they are never fired or forced to apologize?

Posted by: Bevel Lemelisk at August 27, 2015 01:13 PM (fJ5wU)

182 "President Trump would take the problem deadly seriously."

Hell, ninety percent of America would take the problem deadly seriously if they were President. We're saddled with someone from the other ten percent.

Posted by: Qoheleth at August 27, 2015 01:14 PM (iIzG7)

183 But this president seems hell-bent on doing everything to suppress democracy activists and raise up the jihadists.

Couldn't agree more strongly.

Posted by: MTF at August 27, 2015 01:14 PM (TxJGV)

184 I have some ideas on where we can get rid of them....

We could study the effects of nuclear winter on global warming.

Posted by: HR needs cheeseburgers at August 27, 2015 01:14 PM (/kI1Q)

185 Sally Kohn Roanoke Killer Acted Out A Sense Of Victimization I Have No Reason To Believe Not Justified

Whoo Hoo, Sally. Let's basically condone murder. That's reprehensible.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 27, 2015 01:12 PM (OSs/l)

They.Are.Crazy.

well you know life has let me down, people have let me down. so i think i should be able to kill at least 2-3 random people that i don't like the looks of and get a get out of jail/prison free card,..
just because i'm mad .

Posted by: willow at August 27, 2015 01:14 PM (nqBYe)

186 newhandle, you are comprehensively wrong - but your reasoning perfectly mirrors why there is no point in even trying any more. The country is now unserious, esp. about the most serious matters. Any foreign policy situation that takes longer than 3 weeks to resolve, or can be mau-mau'd by the "press" and a Democratic Party that's lost its mind - that would be all the important ones - is now politically unsustainable.

Posted by: rhomboid at August 27, 2015 01:12 PM (QDnY+)


I'm wrong about what?

That the US military is in any way capable of civilizing and uncivilized part of the world that has stubbornly refused to become civilized despite being in the major crossroads of major civilizations going back as far as written records go?

I don't understand how that's even debatable.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:14 PM (AkOaV)

187 Sally Kohn condones the murder of normal people by homosexuals.

Posted by: Boss Moss at August 27, 2015 01:14 PM (DsveK)

188 Posted by: donna at August 27, 2015 01:10 PM (hUdMz)

I don't like this phrase, but this once I'll use it anyway
I hope people are "ripping her a new one".

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 27, 2015 01:14 PM (OSs/l)

189 Sally Kohn condones the murder of normal people by homosexuals

Ban the rainbow flag!

Posted by: donna at August 27, 2015 01:15 PM (hUdMz)

190
This is an unfixable situation (from the outside at least) and there is no reason for us to take on the role of trying to "transform the middle east."

We get nothing out of it.
Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:10 PM (AkOaV

I agree it is an unfixable situation. I agree there is "no way that we are going to transform the ME"

Maybe we are on the same side of the table, I don't see transforming it, but I sure as hell say we should influence it, if we can. Then we will get something out of it.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 27, 2015 01:15 PM (n6Nt0)

191 ISIS was caused by a youtube video.



There are reports that Biden has been briefed that Hillary will not survive the current FBI investigation.


Will Obama hold out his pardon power to keep them quiet?


I would think so.

Posted by: prescient11 at August 27, 2015 01:15 PM (q5APL)

192 Also revealed: Flanagan threw cat feces at neighbors, had a large sex toy trove, drove like a maniac and covered his fridge with photos of himself


o.O

Posted by: RWC - Team BOHICA at August 27, 2015 01:15 PM (fWAjv)

193 I would like to think that the lies will catch up with Him someday, but I'm not holding my breath...

-
I'm afraid his lies will catch up with all of us.

Posted by: The Great White Snark at August 27, 2015 01:15 PM (lGxTo)

194 ISIS hates us so much they don't want to kill us, they want to destroy our ancestors, too - want to wipe out all evidence we ever existed.

Sadly, it can't be done.

Posted by: SkyNet at August 27, 2015 01:15 PM (rwI+c)

195 Of course, I'm assuming Hillary will be sharing recipes with all her new friends a Lewisburg and won't be available.

Nah, she said she made a bad choice, so all is forgiven.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at August 27, 2015 01:15 PM (ODxAs)

196 Posted by: Lizzy at August 27, 2015 01:13 PM (NOIQH)

It's unislamic, so it's unimportant.

That's how Muslims are.

Remember the Taliban blowing up the Buddhist statues when they took power in Afghanistan?

And the MoBro's wanted to destroy and/or cover up the pyramids?

Yeah. That's just the way they are.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:16 PM (AkOaV)

197 Harf Left ? What happened ? Did Target have an opening in the Sweater/Cosmetics department ?

Posted by: Drpullit at August 27, 2015 01:16 PM (BOMQw)

198
It was that damned video.

Posted by: Hillary at August 27, 2015 01:16 PM (9mTYi)

199 159 Rush said Biden (thought it was privately) doesn't think he has it to run for WH.
Posted by: Carol at August 27, 2015 01:09 PM (sj3Ax)

So the Dems are counting on Hillary to weather the storm, or will they give O'Malley a try?

Posted by: joncelli, getting it out of his system at August 27, 2015 01:16 PM (RD7QR)

200 Fuck you, Sally Kohn. Bruce Vester Leatherpants was a professional grievance monger with a narcissistic personality and obvious anger issues. Take some time off Twitter and do something else. Weren't you working on coercing and indoctrinating your daughter to become a lesbian? Go do that instead.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 27, 2015 01:16 PM (2Ojst)

201 well you know life has let me down, people have let
me down. so i think i should be able to kill at least 2-3 random people
that i don't like the looks of and get a get out of jail/prison free
card,..

just because i'm mad .

Posted by: willow at August 27, 2015 01:14 PM (nqBYe)

The pity is that someone didn't hook him up with Sally Kohn's whereabouts.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at August 27, 2015 01:17 PM (oKE6c)

202 I'm running out of "this is my shocked face" memes.

Posted by: Captain Whitebread at August 27, 2015 01:17 PM (4X5NS)

203 Bruce Vester Leatherpants was a professional grievance monger with a narcissistic personality and obvious anger issues.



And the poster boy for "drama queen."

Posted by: Jay Guevara at August 27, 2015 01:17 PM (oKE6c)

204 And I see again Rich Lowry is trying to bring back the NRO crew from the brink of destruction.


Rich's and, I can't believe I'm fucking saying this, Ezra Klein's post-debate pieces revealed very talented writing.


Again, I beg forgiveness. The honey badger article by Klein was fucking pure genius.

Posted by: prescient11 at August 27, 2015 01:18 PM (q5APL)

205 Ace your point is legitimate. Obama has politicized intelligence. But where was the rage when we learned that the Bush White House did the same thing?

Posted by: N at August 27, 2015 01:18 PM (q76uC)

206 Wasn't Harf pregnant?

Posted by: Carol at August 27, 2015 01:18 PM (sj3Ax)

207
So,, when's Buzzion's funeral?

Posted by: Hillary Clinton at August 27, 2015 01:18 PM (HSmrB)

208 "Sally Kohn Roanoke Killer Acted Out A Sense Of Victimization I Have No Reason To Believe Not Justified"


Translation: They died because others sinned somewhere, sometime, against this man or maybe someone else who sort of looked like him.

Posted by: Mikey NTH - Stay Aghast of Events at the Outrage Outlet! at August 27, 2015 01:18 PM (hLRSq)

209
Harf Left ? What happened ?
-------

Sooner or later, but not always, the spokespuppets begin to choke on their own lies. I'm thinking that the consumption of Rolaids by the puppets must be epic.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at August 27, 2015 01:18 PM (9mTYi)

210 But where was the rage when we learned that the Bush White House did the same thing?

Welcome, Mr Van Winkle. How was your nap?

Posted by: Grump928(C) at August 27, 2015 01:18 PM (rwI+c)

211 You got a source for that, N?

Posted by: Chupacabras at August 27, 2015 01:18 PM (kZVsz)

212 The middle east has been populated since the beginning of recorded time. If they wanted anything closely resembling what we'd call Western Democracy ... They would have done it by now. They don't.

On a related note ... It doesn't look like Western Democracies want Western Democracy anymore either. The big winner of the Cold War is looking more and more like ... Fascism.

Posted by: pericles at August 27, 2015 01:18 PM (3FBAK)

213 So,, when's Buzzion's funeral?

Where do I send the flowers?

Posted by: donna at August 27, 2015 01:19 PM (hUdMz)

214 As an aside to your post, Ace, this is why I still reject the premise that should things turn pear-shaped WRT America and Americans, the military apparatus will not - I repeat, will not - defend the people against tyranny; they will remain tools of it.

The only ones who say boo about anything publicly are the ones who have retired and have secured their highest military level and requisite compensation. But as long as they are members of the machine, they are still Borg.

Posted by: AnonymousDrivel at August 27, 2015 01:19 PM (1CroS)

215 You know, the number of times you say to yourself, "Jesus, if W had done this it would be a five-alarm Constitutional emergency," and now it's like we're all just numb.

Of course Obama's people did that. Of course they did.

Posted by: Brewdog at August 27, 2015 01:19 PM (ZgUuK)

216 It's unislamic, so it's unimportant.



That's how Muslims are.




Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:16 PM (AkOaV)

Cell phones and the Internet are un-Islamic too.

Hell, everything down to toilet paper is un-Islamic, if you think about it.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at August 27, 2015 01:19 PM (oKE6c)

217 The left doesn't care about that as was demonstrated by Obama pulling troops out of Iraq not for any strategic reason, just for domestic political purposes.

After World War II a Democratic President could be reasonably sure that a Republican successor would not abandon our newly-conquered foreign allies. A Republican President could have the same confidence in their Democratic successor. We're still in South Korea, after all.

Up until Iraq, I thought that our abandonment of Vietnam in 1975 was out of the ordinary; due to the special circumstances of Nixon's exit and the mistakes committed even before the Paris Peace Accords. Now I'm not so sure. It makes foreign policy calculations quite different if you have to do everything in four years instead of forty.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at August 27, 2015 01:19 PM (2lndx)

218 Maybe we are on the same side of the table, I don't see transforming it, but I sure as hell say we should influence it, if we can. Then we will get something out of it.
Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 27, 2015 01:15 PM (n6Nt0)

We've been trying, but fucking up majorly, ever since oil was discovered in the ME in the early 1900s by British and American companies.

The Brit's and French tried when they ran the ME after WWI and the fall of the Ottomans.

The Ottomans (well, Turks and Kurds) tried for centuries before that.

The Persians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Byzantines, the... whoever you can think of... all tried.

Using much more brutal methods then anything the US population would ever be okay with.

And yet... none succeeded.

So it just seems very arrogant to me to think that our inept corrupt government who can't even spend $1 Trillion on infrastructure without wasting it all and fixing nothing is going to be able to somehow smash down then rebuild a civilization half a world away.

They can't even treat vets at the VA without fucking it up, how can we possibly think they can orchestrate something as massive as re-building a civilization?

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:19 PM (AkOaV)

219 Sally Kohn condones the murder of normal people by homosexuals

-
Josh, Donna, you're looking great. Have you lost weight? New hairstyle? Well, anyway, using "normal" in that context is cisnormative.

Posted by: The Great White Snark at August 27, 2015 01:19 PM (lGxTo)

220 "Yet - even in places like this - one sees many many people parroting the
most stupid, discredited NPR-level memes about intel manipulation."

On the subject of NPR, no one mentioned it in ace's previous thread about immigration and Europe, but NPR hosted a German journalist yesterday to opine at length about how all of the good and decent and informed people in his country are fully in favor of welcoming in this colossal wave of Third World refugees, and in fact, are in favor of bringing in even more.

And hinted in most unsubtle ways that any Germans who demur from this idea must be... _that sort_ of Germans.

You can see how this must delight the bien-pensants in NPR's domestic audience. Because now they can chatter amongst themselves about how Americans who similarly are unhappy with the current immigration flood must of course also be... _that sort_.

Posted by: torquewrench at August 27, 2015 01:19 PM (noWW6)

221 Wasn't Harf pregnant?
Posted by: Carol
-----------

Hmm... or waps that Psaki?

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at August 27, 2015 01:19 PM (9mTYi)

222 Harf is pregnant? Oh, the gene pool will be very disturbed to hear that...

Posted by: MTF at August 27, 2015 01:19 PM (TxJGV)

223 Sooner or later, but not always, the spokespuppets begin to choke on their own lies. I'm thinking that the consumption of Rolaids by the puppets must be epic.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at August 27, 2015 01:18 PM (9mTYi)

I'd have to get a PEG tube for a constant feed of Maalox.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 27, 2015 01:19 PM (2Ojst)

224 >>It's unislamic, so it's unimportant.

Not just random acts of vandalism.

They have to destroy churches and build mosques on the ruins specifically because they know how important the church was to the people they are conquering. They do this again and again.

Posted by: Lizzy at August 27, 2015 01:19 PM (NOIQH)

225 173 Sally Kohn Roanoke Killer Acted Out A Sense Of Victimization I Have No Reason To Believe Not Justified


So a man commits violence against a woman, and we blame the victim?

patriarchy!!

Posted by: brak at August 27, 2015 01:20 PM (Tj+s6)

226 >>> Harf Left ? What happened ? Did Target have an opening in the Sweater/Cosmetics department ?
Posted by: Drpullit

She used to be an intelligence analyst for the CIA. I meant she left that post. I didn't mean she left the administration. I doubt even she could save things now.

Posted by: Bruce Boehner at August 27, 2015 01:20 PM (E5UB0)

227 i dunno about the impossibility of having more friendly more modern societies in the ME we Have Israel.
Afghanistan and Iran were pretty modern , women wore actual dresses and went to college. society wasn't as overtly religious or at least not ran by sharia police as openly.

i'm amazed when i look at pics of afghanistan pre 70s

so maybe not exactly western but modern and not so extreme.

Posted by: willow at August 27, 2015 01:20 PM (nqBYe)

228 Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at August 27, 2015 01:13 PM (2lndx)

When we 'allowed' the Japanese and Germans to form their Constitutions post WW2, we made SURE not to allow Fascism, or Shintoism, in their new documents.

In Iraq, we allowed them to put SHARIA LAW into their Constitution.

Recipe for disaster...

Posted by: BB Wolf at August 27, 2015 01:20 PM (qh617)

229
"MSNBC Demotes Al Sharpton"


MSNBC Demotes Al Sharpton?

Posted by: Rev Al Sharpton at August 27, 2015 01:20 PM (OD2ni)

230 Not a smidgen of beheadings, rapes, crucifixions, gays off of buildings, child slavery, et.al.!!!

In a sane world ....well, you know the rest.

Posted by: Cheri at August 27, 2015 01:20 PM (oiNtH)

231 221 Wasn't Harf pregnant?
Posted by: Carol
-----------

Hmm... or waps that Psaki?
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at August 27, 2015 01:19 PM (9mTYi)

Pso psomeone was pregnant, but we aren't psure who?

Posted by: Insomniac at August 27, 2015 01:20 PM (2Ojst)

232 Ace, Could you consider having a few choice words with Ms. Kohn if you aren't already going that on Twitter.

She basically gave a green light to murder if you're a privileged class.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 27, 2015 01:20 PM (OSs/l)

233 Cell phones and the Internet are un-Islamic too.

Hell, everything down to toilet paper is un-Islamic, if you think about it.
Posted by: Jay Guevara at August 27, 2015 01:19 PM (oKE6c)

Well, history buffs will know that was a major thing during the Ottoman days.

Guns were unIslamic. So they didn't use them. But unfortunately for them, the europeans did.

Long story short, they issues a fatwa -- now guns are okay.

So they're flexible on that "unislamic" rule when they need to be.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:21 PM (AkOaV)

234 It's evil and all those people who were upset by the destruction of
Iraq's antiquities under Bush are now silent as ISIS and MB are wiping
out Western civilization, past and present.


Yeah, it was really something else how all the people who sobbed--actually sat at their desks and sobbed--about the Afghan Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban have nothing to say about ISIS trashing Palmyra.

I'm slightly less surprised that the UN can't be bothered to condemn the destruction of its own World Heritage Site when it's Muslims doing it. They've always been worthless.

Posted by: HR needs cheeseburgers at August 27, 2015 01:21 PM (/kI1Q)

235 >>so in other words, we just need to get better at the whole "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" thing?

>>There is no way that we are going to transform the middle east. Every empire before us has tried, and none have succeeded in any long term "transformations."

Not true. We've been transforming the Middle East forever. We've helped rewrite borders, mixed tribes and installed leaders and we've been doing it for a very long time. We loved strong men because they kept the trains running on time and largely kept the crazies at bay. But it was never sustainable.

The problem is we do things and then largely leave and let things play out and they always play out badly. We did not do this in Japan, we did not do this in Germany, we did not do this in South Korea. Of course there are differences between all of those countries and the Middle East but they also represent examples of where American influence and policy sustained over time absolutely introduced fundamental change into those societies.

What we also do know is that what we have been doing in the Middle East over the time has not worked and also walking away ends very badly. Since we've never actually tried to sustain long term change in the Middle East with anything like a consistent plan like we did in the other 3 examples I mentioned, perhaps it's time to give it a try.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 01:21 PM (OGm46)

236
>>> Harf Left ? What happened ? Did Target have an opening in the Sweater/Cosmetics department ?
Posted by: Drpullit

She used to be an intelligence analyst for the CIA. I meant she left that post. I didn't mean she left the administration. I doubt even she could save things now."




I believe she is now in charge of negotitaiong with Iran. We're in the best of hands.

Posted by: Benji Carver at August 27, 2015 01:22 PM (OD2ni)

237 Flanagan threw cat feces at neighbors, had a large sex toy trove, drove
like a maniac and covered his fridge with photos of himself





If true, he sounds like was a very difficult person. I might go so far as to say awful, even excluding his murder rampage.

Posted by: Moderate Salami, weeping for our dead Republic at August 27, 2015 01:22 PM (/Ho8c)

238
How can you downplay ISIS? The news has been nothing but them steamrolling into one city or another and slaughtering the population. They are everywhere: Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Sinai, Nigeria....have I missed any places?

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at August 27, 2015 01:22 PM (iQIUe)

239 So,, when's Buzzion's funeral?



Posted by: Hillary Clinton at August 27, 2015 01:18 PM (HSmrB)



He'll be trebucheted into Canada on Tuesday morning at 10:00 am EST.

Posted by: Mikey NTH - Stay Aghast of Events at the Outrage Outlet! at August 27, 2015 01:22 PM (hLRSq)

240 >>Harf Left ? What happened ? Did Target have an opening in the Sweater/Cosmetics department ?

You heard she joined the State Dept. team negotiating the Iran Deal, right?
Seriously.

Posted by: Lizzy at August 27, 2015 01:22 PM (NOIQH)

241 In a sometimes-rambling account of his time at WDBJ Flanagan accused co-workers of racially harassing him by placing a watermelon around the office.

'The watermelon would appear, then disappear, then appear and disappear, then appear and disappear again only to appear again,' he wrote in a May 2014 letter to presiding Judge Francis Burkart.

'This was not an innocent incident. The watermelon was placed in a strategic location.'

Posted by: RWC - Team BOHICA at August 27, 2015 01:23 PM (fWAjv)

242 181 173 Sally Kohn Roanoke Killer Acted Out A Sense Of Victimization I Have No Reason To Believe Not Justified

Whoo Hoo, Sally. Let's basically condone murder. That's reprehensible.


You notice how they are never fired or forced to apologize?
Posted by: Bevel Lemelisk at August 27, 2015 01:13 PM (fJ5wU)

No, they're a protected group. And now maybe we get gay terrorism? Maybe against churches that won't perform gay weddings? That should be interesting.

Posted by: joncelli, getting it out of his system at August 27, 2015 01:23 PM (RD7QR)

243
I bet ISIS is even....HERE!! Right in AoSHQ. yep.

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at August 27, 2015 01:23 PM (iQIUe)

244
newhandle, respectfully, "transforming" is a key strawman.

We have long intervened in the MidEast - cuz strategic interest - in all kinds of ways to promote our interests. "Transformation" was never the goal or motivation.

Iraq II was a case of our hand being forced, period. And when given no *good* alternative to removing the Iraqi Ba'ath regime, it would have been sheer idiocy to do drive-by regime change.

It's not "nation building". It's doing what you can to consolidate any gains and give yourself influence over events that affect you.

Iraq was chock full of mistakes - almost none of them the ones ritualistically chanted in these comment sections, in fact sometimes the opposite.

To give JackStraw's point about abandoning a mostly *successful* Iraq intervention some more color, imagine abandoning Greece (and even France) in the late 1940s. NATO was brand-new/weak, Soviet-backed or aligned or exploitable initiatives were vibrant in western Europe, to the extent of a civil war in Greece of course.

Point being - post-war Europe was a giant calamitous wasteland that could easily have gone "the wrong way" if the idiots now running the US were in charge. WWII wasn't about building a stable constitutional Germany, nuking Hiroshima wasn't about giving Japanese women the vote - sometimes you need to destroy an intolerable threat, THEN do the best you can to follow up. Only rational course. And in Iraq, there is nothing remotely inevitable about today's situation. Nothing.

Posted by: rhomboid at August 27, 2015 01:23 PM (QDnY+)

245 If true, he sounds like was a very difficult person. I might go so far as to say awful, even excluding his murder rampage.

Posted by: Moderate Salami, weeping for our dead Republic at August 27, 2015 01:22 PM (/Ho8c)

Ya don't say?

Posted by: Nevergiveup at August 27, 2015 01:23 PM (gf8BH)

246 Barack's apparently having the agencies hand out "WIN" buttons - Whip Insurgency Now - to boost morale and remind everyone that Barack's ideas are winners.

Posted by: Multitude at August 27, 2015 01:23 PM (c7WnJ)

247
If true, he sounds like was a very difficult person. I might go so far as to say awful, even excluding his murder rampage.

Posted by: Moderate Salami, weeping for our dead Republic at August 27, 2015 01:22 PM (/Ho8c)

Apparently he got sacked from job after job in part because he couldn't get along with anybody.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 27, 2015 01:23 PM (2Ojst)

248 "The problem we face is that we as a country are not prepared to face the
fact that in order to help really transform this region it is going to
take a lot more consistent engagement."

My own rather more pessimistic formulation would be that we as a country are not prepared to face the fact that in order to help really transform this region it is going to require the extirpation, or at least the extensive suppression, of the Islamic religion.

Posted by: torquewrench at August 27, 2015 01:23 PM (noWW6)

249
I believe she is now in charge of negotitaiong with Iran. We're in the best of hands.

You mean She's not assisting Susan Rice at the UN with their LGBT rights conference? I'm sure that's going over well with the Muslims...

Posted by: donna at August 27, 2015 01:23 PM (hUdMz)

250 Yeah, Harf is a Senior Adviser to Kerry now.

Good hands!

Posted by: RWC - Team BOHICA at August 27, 2015 01:24 PM (fWAjv)

251 i'm amazed when i look at pics of afghanistan pre 70s

so maybe not exactly western but modern and not so extreme.
Posted by: willow at August 27, 2015 01:20 PM (nqBYe)

Well, when we they had brutal pan-arab socialist dictators (Syria and Iraq) or Emperor for Life's (Shah in Iran), they were somewhat "westernized".

But the entire time, there was an undercurrent of jihadi types. The governments just tortured and killed any one who got too loud.

that model has collapsed.

But it was never really sustainable, and took a fuckload of work by the Ottomans, followed by the British and French to even get to that point.

And even with all that work and oil money, that model survived less than 100 years. Which is a blink of an eye in middle eastern history.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:24 PM (AkOaV)

252 Sally Kohn Roanoke Killer Acted Out A Sense Of Victimization I Have No Reason To Believe Not Justified

If you feel it was justified Sally, then it's just sad it wasn't you that ended up in that film shoot. Then your family and loved ones would have no need to grieve because well, it was justified.

Posted by: gapoz at August 27, 2015 01:24 PM (thyJJ)

253
So a man commits violence against a woman, and we blame the victim?



patriarchy!!

Posted by: brak


Um, but you're forgetting:

The woman was white. He was black and gay. He wins, I think, with two checkmarks.

Posted by: Moderate Salami, weeping for our dead Republic at August 27, 2015 01:24 PM (/Ho8c)

254 > Reports that have been deemed too pessimistic about the efficacy of the American-led campaign, or that have questioned whether a U.S.-trained Iraqi military can ultimately defeat ISIS, have been sent back down through the chain of command or haven't been shared with senior policymakers, several analysts alleged.

Well, fortunately, there are a great many staff positions at the Pentagon dedicated to generating PowerPoint presentations to demonstrate that a turd is in fact a diamond.

Posted by: Brewdog at August 27, 2015 01:24 PM (ZgUuK)

255 FenelonSpoke: "She basically gave a green light to murder if you're a privileged class."

And Kohn will retain the right to define "privileged" as needed.

Posted by: AnonymousDrivel at August 27, 2015 01:24 PM (1CroS)

256 Sally Kohn is all fine when it is not her tribe getting targeted (though in a sense it was part of her tribe - whites and "journalists")(assuming being white makes you part of a tribe), but if a disgruntled "victimized" teacher were to kill her child, I am pretty sure she would not be saying there was no reason to believe not justified based on victimization.

Posted by: Penfold at August 27, 2015 01:24 PM (Fbt5B)

257 newhandle, you are comprehensively wrong - but your reasoning perfectly mirrors why there is no point in even trying any more. The country is now unserious, esp. about the most serious matters. Any foreign policy situation that takes longer than 3 weeks to resolve, or can be mau-mau'd by the "press" and a Democratic Party that's lost its mind - that would be all the important ones - is now politically unsustainable.


He's not unserious. This idea that the US can go around fixing nations is an idealistic view of the results of WWII, but has not worked in any of the conflicts since.

Nations are the way they are because of their people and culture. "Fixing" them involves a dedicated effort of culture wars and deliberate imperialism - something not possible in our own Politically Correct baby-murdering nation.

Posted by: ConservativeMonster at August 27, 2015 01:24 PM (0NdlF)

258
We have to quit enabling the double standard. At every opportunity remind them that no one gets a pass ever.

Maybe Ace - because it is his blog. But only a little bit.

Posted by: GBruno at August 27, 2015 01:24 PM (u49WF)

259 255 FenelonSpoke: "She basically gave a green light to murder if you're a privileged class."

And Kohn will retain the right to define "privileged" as needed.
Posted by: AnonymousDrivel at August 27, 2015 01:24 PM (1CroS)

Kohn is white, but female and homosexual, ergo oppressed.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 27, 2015 01:25 PM (2Ojst)

260 It's truly incredible, and of course the major media aren't interested.

If the US was actually not doing well with a lefty Dem as CiC, I have no expectations that the MSM would tell us about it. I've read that those cruise missiles that Clinton was lobbing in Serbia in Bubba's Happy War were hitting empty buildings because the Serbs figured out that they aimed for microwave transmissions

Rule for deciphering MSM war coverage, use the same rules as when they cover the economy;

If a Dem is in charge, we're hearing that the USA is kicking ass and they're not even scratching the paint on the planes

If a Republican is in charge, it's VIETNAM ALL OVER AGAIN!

Posted by: kbdabear at August 27, 2015 01:25 PM (9hYrP)

261 We're offended at the "JV Label".

Posted by: ISIS Local 415, Union Rep at August 27, 2015 01:25 PM (UhRGU)

262 Now if somebody tipped the media that Dick Cheney was the one goosing the intelligence on Obama's behalf they'd find their journalistic impulse.

Posted by: East Bay Jay at August 27, 2015 01:25 PM (7v8o1)

263 In Iraq, we allowed them to put SHARIA LAW into their Constitution.

It wasn't just that. I remember when deciding on how the government should be structured, everyone, especially on the left but really, *everyone*, worrying about what would happen if Iraq were structured around discrete territories with their own interests. And I'm thinking, that's the United States! It may not be perfect, but if it lasts in Iraq for only a few hundred years it's better than what they had.

I do think that if we had started with the US constitution and then whittled away what clearly wouldn't work in Iraq, rather than creating the more European-style system that they got, it would have given them a better chance. But even that wouldn't have mattered given how we abandoned them at a point when it wouldn't have taken much to aid them.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at August 27, 2015 01:26 PM (2lndx)

264 206 Wasn't Harf pregnant?
Posted by: Carol at August 27, 2015 01:18 PM (sj3Ax)

Cow, udders, teat jokes will flow as in milk and honey

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 27, 2015 01:26 PM (n6Nt0)

265 I bet ISIS is even....HERE!! Right in AoSHQ. yep.

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang!


*squinty eyes, looks around*

Posted by: Moderate Salami, weeping for our dead Republic at August 27, 2015 01:26 PM (/Ho8c)

266 Flanagan threw cat feces at neighbors, had a large sex toy trove, drove
like a maniac and covered his fridge with photos of himself




But, per DSM-V, he was A-OK.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at August 27, 2015 01:26 PM (oKE6c)

267 >>rhomboid at August 27, 2015 01:23 PM (QDnY+)

Agree 100%.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 01:26 PM (OGm46)

268 "Fixing" them involves a dedicated effort of culture wars and deliberate imperialism - something not possible in our own Politically Correct baby-murdering nation.
Posted by: ConservativeMonster at August 27, 2015 01:24 PM (0NdlF)

Yup, fixing them involves first destroying them and their will to resist, something we are to PC to do anymore. But on the bright side after the soon to be nuclear holocaust, that might change. And by the way I am NOT saying that tongue in cheek, I am dead serious.

Posted by: Nevergiveup at August 27, 2015 01:27 PM (gf8BH)

269 164
Sally Kohn Roanoke Killer Acted Out A Sense Of Victimization I Have No Reason To Believe Not Justified



Posted by: Nevergiveup at August 27, 2015 01:09 PM (gf8BH)

I am pretty sure that if I was a family member of one of the murder victims, I would feel victimized by this comment, Sally. What conduct would that justify, you silly vagina?

Posted by: rebel flounder at August 27, 2015 01:27 PM (Vf5rR)

270 Posted by: rhomboid at August 27, 2015 01:23 PM (QDnY+)

The post-WWI West Germany model does not work on backwards Islamic cultures. Or at least, never has in the history of the world.

No model has worked.

Iraq was destined to be what it is today because it's not even a country. It's a mix of warring tribes who have beef that goes back to pre-Islam days, and that was only held together by a brutal pan-Arab socialist party (Ba'aths) who had no qualms about torturing and killing anyone who got too jihadi.

And without massive oil fields, Iraq would have never survived as long as it did as a country. That money flow allowed Saddam to pay for his massive government apparatus that killed jihadists and any dissenters and that kept the tribal chiefs in line.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:27 PM (AkOaV)

271 MSNBC Demotes Al Sharpton?

Posted by: Rev Al Sharpton at August 27, 2015 01:20 PM (OD2ni)
---
Is it even possible to demote a bottom feeder?

Posted by: The Nayden Broad at August 27, 2015 01:28 PM (7+xXC)

272
He'll be trebucheted into Canada on Tuesday morning at 10:00 am EST.

Posted by: Mikey NTH - Stay Aghast of Events at the Outrage Outlet! at August 27, 2015 01:22 PM (hLRSq)

----------------------------------------

So,, if I attend, I'll have to run and dodge him like sniper fire then....


Posted by: Hillary Clinton at August 27, 2015 01:28 PM (HSmrB)

273 Unleash the #hashtag!

Posted by: Barack Obama at August 27, 2015 01:28 PM (E5UB0)

274 >> Now if somebody tipped the media that Dick Cheney was the one goosing the intelligence on Obama's behalf they'd find their journalistic impulse

Yeah, see: There are no WMDs!!!! Bush Lied!!!!!!

Posted by: Lizzy at August 27, 2015 01:28 PM (NOIQH)

275 Here is Ace defending the Bush White House against accusations of politicized intelligence:

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/032718.php

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/233911.php

Etc.

Posted by: N at August 27, 2015 01:28 PM (q76uC)

276 Wasn't Harf pregnant?
Posted by: Carol at August 27, 2015 01:18 PM (sj3Ax)

Of course, don't you remember her tits trying to break out of her sweater?

Posted by: Nevergiveup at August 27, 2015 01:28 PM (gf8BH)

277 W.I.N. buttons. Jimmy Carter still influences the WH and the ME

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 27, 2015 01:28 PM (n6Nt0)

278 >>The post-WWI West Germany model does not work on backwards Islamic cultures. Or at least, never has in the history of the world.

It's actually never been tried.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 01:28 PM (OGm46)

279 You can see how this must delight the bien-pensants in NPR's domestic
audience. Because now they can chatter amongst themselves about how
Americans who similarly are unhappy with the current immigration flood
must of course also be... _that sort_.


There's been some of that in the comments here this week, you may have noticed.

Posted by: HR needs cheeseburgers at August 27, 2015 01:28 PM (/kI1Q)

280 He'll be trebucheted into Canada on Tuesday morning at 10:00 am EST.

Canada just built a wall. With SCUD missiles.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at August 27, 2015 01:28 PM (2lndx)

281 Flanagan threw cat feces at neighbors, had a large sex toy trove, drove

like a maniac and covered his fridge with photos of himself
------
In other words, like an ordinary feminist.

Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn at August 27, 2015 01:28 PM (UhRGU)

282 187
Sally Kohn condones the murder of normal people by homosexuals.


Posted by: Boss Moss at August 27, 2015 01:14 PM (DsveK)

Breeders must be destroyed!

Posted by: Nip Sip at August 27, 2015 01:29 PM (0FSuD)

283 Here is Ace defending the Bush White House against accusations of politicized intelligence

I see you struggling to make some kind of point, but it's not apparent what it is.

Posted by: Grump928(C) at August 27, 2015 01:29 PM (rwI+c)

284 'The watermelon would appear, then disappear, then appear and disappear, then appear and disappear again only to appear again,' he wrote in a May 2014 letter to presiding Judge Francis Burkart.

'This was not an innocent incident. The watermelon was placed in a strategic location.'

-
Dude, it was a watermelon of the mind. See MacBeth.

Posted by: The Great White Snark at August 27, 2015 01:29 PM (lGxTo)

285 Flanagan threw cat feces at neighbors, had a large sex toy trove, drove
like a maniac and covered his fridge with photos of himself.


Let he who has not . . . . cast the first cat turd.


Posted by: rebel flounder at August 27, 2015 01:29 PM (Vf5rR)

286 So, how did I get the Date a Nice Asian Lady ads?? I been hea fo howa, I go now?

Posted by: Gouverneur Morris at August 27, 2015 01:29 PM (dQJCS)

287 Former whitehouse fence jumper was shot and killed when he attacked a sheriff's deputy.

The more these people get offed, the more relief I feel.

Posted by: Bruce Boehner at August 27, 2015 01:29 PM (E5UB0)

288 Of course, we'll jump right on this!!!

Posted by: McConnell,Boehner and the rest of the Vichy Republicans at August 27, 2015 01:29 PM (hKyl0)

289 This is a tired game, but could you imagine if any concervative media figure tried to say that "well mayve Dylan Roof was picked on by black kids in school, which may have justified his hatred." Kohn would leading the outrage mob. I despise a society that gives this person Kohn legititmacy

Posted by: Benji Carver at August 27, 2015 01:30 PM (OD2ni)

290 Jackstraw, i agree with that comment.

but we have no staying power, we have shrieking about endless war here, and people so committed to poltical sides they neglect and undermine our efforts to Leave a Stable society so we pull out before they are standing up.

as they say leaving a vacuum that only a strong horse as in (Vietnam) leaving communists to take over or groups such as (taliban) (khomeini types)usually bloody and deadly fills.

Posted by: willow at August 27, 2015 01:30 PM (nqBYe)

291 Yup, fixing them involves first destroying them and their will to resist, something we are to PC to do anymore. But on the bright side after the soon to be nuclear holocaust, that might change. And by the way I am NOT saying that tongue in cheek, I am dead serious.

Posted by: Nevergiveup at August 27, 2015 01:27 PM (gf8BH)


Morally, our nation does not deserve to be left standing in such a holocaust.

So. Not looking forward to such things. But there is going to be a Judgement by Fire.

Posted by: ConservativeMonster at August 27, 2015 01:30 PM (0NdlF)

292 Under the new rules are constant , daily , 'Trump is Hitler - Trump supporters are Brownshirts' harangues bannable?

Just wondering.


When does Trump start his beer hall tour? Will his official campaign uniform be brown shirts?
Asking for a friend

Posted by: Nip Sip at August 25, 2015 02:30 PM (0FSuD)

I know the Trumpoids do not like the comparison to a
certain dictator in Germany, who's name will not be mentioned, but the
comparisons are pretty scary.
That fellow wanted a "pure race" and land without non Germans. Trump wants the code word, "illegals" thrown out, all 11 million.

Posted by: Nip Sip at August 26, 2015 05:27 PM (0FSuD)

Posted by: lurksee at August 27, 2015 01:30 PM (xdzVP)

293 post-wwii*

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:30 PM (AkOaV)

294 The NYT is out with a critical article of Hillary, concerning the national security scandal they call an "email scandal". Its the most tin-eared thing I've ever read from them, comparing Clintons critics to "flies buzzing".

The woman hands over our most important intelligence to the world, in the process expressing contempt for law and the lives of soldiers, diplomats and average Americans, and the Times can't bring themselves to even be respectful to the victims.

It's hard to fully express my contempt for the writers, editors and owners of the NYT.

Posted by: MTF at August 27, 2015 01:30 PM (TxJGV)

295 My take on the ME? Save the Christians (and the Kurds), then take the oil. Leave the muzzies to kill themselves.

I'd also tell them the nuclear option will be executed if they even look at Israel.

Posted by: Soona at August 27, 2015 01:30 PM (P25Hh)

296 The same GOP who believed we could pacify a nation of 25 million people thinks deporting eleven million is unrealistic.

Posted by: Bevel Lemelisk at August 27, 2015 01:30 PM (fJ5wU)

297 Thanks for the Garand info in the dead thread, BTW.

Posted by: Chupacabras at August 27, 2015 01:31 PM (kZVsz)

298
JackStraw, well said. My own over-long comment in response to 'handle omitted the details about how we (and the UK) have been elbows-deep in the MidEast (in our case since the 1950s). And it is very hard to argue that our "interventions", such as they were, were not successful and in our interest.

One universally ignored achievement with almost no analogue I can think of - the US, from the 1970s to the present day, has been, simultaneously,the key ally/partner/whatever of 1) Israel and 2) the majority of Arab states, and almost all the most important ones (Egypt before Sadat, and the two Ba'athist tyrannies being the exceptions).

But I dissent in the VDH-like analysis that what we have done in the past was unsustainable in the sense that there was any practical alternative. Nothing is sustainable when the underlying fundamentals shift. Foreign policy is, mostly, broken-field running, not engineering. Easy (and not really persuasive) to say we should have done something (what, is not clear) other than back the wahhabist Saudi regime, as al-Qaeda was an inevitable side-effect of that support.

Apologies. If ace expands his bannination policy to encompass comment length, I'll be as dead as poor Buzzion.

Posted by: rhomboid at August 27, 2015 01:31 PM (QDnY+)

299 >>Sally Kohn Roanoke Killer Acted Out A Sense Of Victimization I Have No Reason To Believe Not Justified


"acted out of a sense of victimization" - is that the new standard now, one simply has to "feel" victimized? Huh.

Also, cutesy double negative that = "I believe it's justified", which is an ugly statement indeed.

Posted by: Lizzy at August 27, 2015 01:31 PM (NOIQH)

300 Canada just built a wall. With SCUD missiles.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at August 27, 2015 01:28 PM (2lndx)



Cool. Fireworks.

Posted by: Mikey NTH - Stay Aghast of Events at the Outrage Outlet! at August 27, 2015 01:31 PM (hLRSq)

301 Islamic State Throws 9 Men Off Building In Mosul For Being Gay


And yet the Obama regime continues to claim this has nothing to do with Islam.

Weasel Zippers

Hey isn't 9 on one day like an Olympic record or something? I know Hamas in Gaza introduced the sport a few years ago, but 9, I do think that is a record?

Posted by: Nevergiveup at August 27, 2015 01:31 PM (gf8BH)

302 Kohn is white, but female and homosexual, ergo oppressed.

Female doesn't seem to count anymore if you're straight and white--you may have noticed one of the victims Kohn thinks it was OK to kill was a white woman.

Posted by: HR needs cheeseburgers at August 27, 2015 01:31 PM (/kI1Q)

303 "The post-WWI West Germany model does not work on backwards Islamic cultures. Or at least, never has in the history of the world. "

WWII? The post-WWI model didn't even work in Germany.

Posted by: Not Mitt Romney at August 27, 2015 01:31 PM (TULs6)

304 Posted by: rhomboid at August 27, 2015 01:23 PM (QDnY+)

Interesting question...

We 'mostly' have intervened in the Middle East to keep oil prices to a manageable level.

However, today, at $60-65 a barrel the US will increase its own oil production, at $40, it won't (due to our own laws and costs of production).

Is it in OUR interest to spend blood and treasure, keeping oil prices low enough to stifle our own internal Production?

I think a major global economic dynamic changed with Fracking.... where we could starve the Middle East of the capital it uses 'IF' we would play by the same rules as OPEC, and control production and prices.

Posted by: BB Wolf at August 27, 2015 01:31 PM (qh617)

305 Flanagan threw cat feces at neighbors, had a large sex toy trove, drove
like a maniac and covered his fridge with photos of himself.

all this may be explained and excused by the sadness he felt by people rejection of his awesome awesomeness

Posted by: willow at August 27, 2015 01:32 PM (nqBYe)

306 'The watermelon would appear, then disappear, then appear and disappear, then appear and disappear again only to appear again,' he wrote in a May 2014 letter to presiding Judge Francis Burkart.

'This was not an innocent incident. The watermelon was placed in a strategic location.'

-
Dude, it was a watermelon of the mind. See MacBeth.

Posted by: The Great White Snark at August 27, 2015 01:29 PM (lGxTo)


A Watermelon of Mass Delusion?

Posted by: Mikey NTH - Stay Aghast of Events at the Outrage Outlet! at August 27, 2015 01:32 PM (hLRSq)

307 >>My take on the ME? Save the Christians (and the Kurds), then take the oil. Leave the muzzies to kill themselves.


Are there any Christians or Jews tere left to save?
Not sarcastic.

Posted by: Lizzy at August 27, 2015 01:32 PM (NOIQH)

308 >>Apologies. If ace expands his bannination policy to encompass comment length, I'll be as dead as poor Buzzion.

Buzzion's not really dead. His spirit infects this place like an invasion of head lice.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 01:32 PM (OGm46)

309 285 Flanagan threw cat feces at neighbors, had a large sex toy trove, drove
like a maniac and covered his fridge with photos of himself.


Let he who has not . . . . cast the first cat turd.


Posted by: rebel flounder at August 27, 2015 01:29 PM (Vf5rR)

I do not own a cat, for I am neither female nor ghey.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 27, 2015 01:33 PM (2Ojst)

310 Pentagon Nood.

Posted by: ConservativeMonster at August 27, 2015 01:33 PM (0NdlF)

311 Run Corgis, run, run like the wind you fat little f*ckers...Corgis not morons

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 27, 2015 01:33 PM (n6Nt0)

312 Tremendous. Simply tremendous. I will do amazingly tremendous things with this information. I have thousands of tremendous employees who will tremendously do great amazing things with ISIS. Incredible stuff. Amazing.

Posted by: Donald T. (anon for this) at August 27, 2015 01:33 PM (vgIRn)

313 I see you struggling to make some kind of point, but it's not apparent what it is.

Posted by: Grump928(C)


Erg thinks "BOOOOSH DID IT TOOO" is an actual argument and not tu quoque. Sad, that guy.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at August 27, 2015 01:33 PM (Ck8hC)

314 Is this a watermelon which I see before me, The rind toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, ...

- Bryce Williams

Posted by: The Great White Snark at August 27, 2015 01:33 PM (lGxTo)

315 Does anyone remember seeing pictures of Afghanistan in and how civilized they were in 1950s-1960s?

Posted by: Carol at August 27, 2015 01:34 PM (sj3Ax)

316 It's actually never been tried.
Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 01:28 PM (OGm46)

So what have the last 1000 years and hundreds of interventions by outside powers been all about?

Germany was (arguably) a cultural center of Europe. We didn't have to transform their civilization. We just had to help them rebuild to what they used to be, just less warlike.

We're starting from scratch with the ME. Even worse, we're starting from "tribal government" and trying to turn t hat in to 'western government'.

I know of no model of that ever working. I do know that the British, French, and Ottomans spent collectively 400 years or so trying to make the ME / N Africa somewhat self governing and totally failed before realizing "fuck it, lets just put the most powerful tribal chief in command of small areas and just have one throat to choke when things inevitably get fucky"

At least with the Japanese, they were a single 'tribe' (if you will) and we didn't have to get over THAT hurdle.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:34 PM (AkOaV)

317 "That fellow wanted a "pure race" and land without non Germans. Trump wants the code word, "illegals" thrown out, all 11 million."

Adolf Hitler may live under American beds, but his true spirit shall forever reside in their navels.

Posted by: Not Mitt Romney at August 27, 2015 01:34 PM (TULs6)

318 But as long as they are members of the machine, they are still Borg.
Posted by: AnonymousDrivel at August 27, 2015 01:19 PM (1CroS)

Spot on. When asked a few active duty friends about Obama's completely unlawful Libya adventure (Yeah, let's get on the side of a bunch of jihadis overthrowing a guy with whom we'd made an actual deal with to get rid of his nuke program--and he did) it was made very clear to me that we work for the Executive Branch and the Constitution and oaths and such be damned.

In all fairness, you can't be second-guessing every decision of your commander (especially when even Congress won't stand up for themselves), but the it makes you wonder what it would actually take for the military to actually defend the Constitution in opposition to a malevolent Executive.

Posted by: Hurricane LaFawnduh at August 27, 2015 01:34 PM (laMCB)

319 >>WWII? The post-WWI model didn't even work in Germany.

That's actually an excellent point. What happened after WWI in Germany was effectively collective punishment by the victors followed by indifference. And look what we got, WWII.

We learned and then we forgot what didn't work and what did.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 01:35 PM (OGm46)

320
One can't fix the middle east by training the population to be peaceful and respect other groups' values.

One fixes the middle east by making the population so afraid that they don't dare but to respect other groups' values.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 27, 2015 01:37 PM (HJ9LB)

321 305 Flanagan threw cat feces at neighbors, had a large sex toy trove, drove like a maniac and covered his fridge with photos of himself.
all this may be explained and excused by the sadness he felt by people rejection of his awesome awesomeness fabulousness.

Posted by: willow at August 27, 2015 01:32 PM (nqBYe)


Posted by: Jay Guevara at August 27, 2015 01:37 PM (oKE6c)

322 That's actually an excellent point. What happened after WWI in Germany was effectively collective punishment by the victors followed by indifference. And look what we got, WWII.

We learned and then we forgot what didn't work and what did.
Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 01:35 PM (OGm46)

hey, I corrected my typo. I meant WWII, not Weimar Germany.

But yes, getting in the mistakes Wilson and other world leaders made post-WWI is a whole different topic, with a ton of interesting and differing insights and ideas.

Posted by: mynewhandle at August 27, 2015 01:40 PM (AkOaV)

323 MisHum,I don't think Biden has the heart to be president because he's getting up there and is still mourning son.
Plus obvious other reasons.

Posted by: Carol at August 27, 2015 01:40 PM (sj3Ax)

324 " Foreign policy is, mostly, broken-field running, not engineering."

Certain engineering rules retain their applicability in foreign policy.

For instance, "Fast, cheap, good: pick any two of the three."

Posted by: torquewrench at August 27, 2015 01:42 PM (noWW6)

325 Send one up the Tigris... one up the Euphrates...

"That the corn and oil of Mesopotamia might be ours"?

Sorry, I didn't say that. Lawrence of bleedin Arabia said it, and I just couldn't resist quoting him.

The Brits did just that, got their tit in a wringer, and ended up having to support a Wahhabi insugency to counterbalance their losses. In faint defense of Messrs Sykes and Picot, there was kinda-sorta-stability in the region for a while after that, at least as long as there was something like stability in Europe.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at August 27, 2015 01:42 PM (xq1UY)

326 MSNBC Demotes Al Sharpton From 5 Days To One, New Show Airs Sunday Mornings At 8:00 AM

Posted by: mallfly at August 27, 2015 01:07 PM (qSIlh)

Down goes Sharpton! Down goes Sharpton!

Posted by: Zombie Howard Cosell at August 27, 2015 01:42 PM (9hYrP)

327 >>So what have the last 1000 years and hundreds of interventions by outside powers been all about?

Largely about bending those countries to our will and not trying to help them build some sort of open and stable government. Very first thing our CIA did was help the Brits overthrow the elected government of Iran that had decided to renege on a deal with the Brits for oil. And then we largely let it play out and we all know how that ended up.

It's one thing to isolate a tiny, largely powerless and poor country like Cuba. We can't do that with the Middle East even if we wanted to.

We are still in Germany. I was born there when my dad was serving in the Army. Lots of morons here have served in Germany. And we are going to be there for the foreseeable future. That war has been over for a long, long time. That's the kind of sustained commitment I am talking about.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 01:42 PM (OGm46)

328 Posted by: Lizzy at August 27, 2015 01:31 PM (NOIQH)

I try to remember that "the news" is not really news, it's just carnival-barker-inspired clickbait.

Kohn's editors are probably true believers (she must be a voice for the oppressed, we're all white and straight here!), but WaPo and CNN mainly tolerate her because she can really generate those outrage clicks.

Posted by: Hurricane LaFawnduh at August 27, 2015 01:45 PM (laMCB)

329 That's the kind of sustained commitment I am talking about.
Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 01:42 PM (OGm46)

We were in Germany for the Cold War. Afterward, you could justify staying for a stable reunification. But then, I think, it was just bureaucratic inertia + "commitment to NATO," not that we couldn't have promised to keep a ready force for deployment on the East Coast of the U.S.

Now, of course, Putin is on the prowl, so we missed the window. Our withdrawal would have forced the perfidious Europeans to fund their own damn defense.

Posted by: Hurricane LaFawnduh at August 27, 2015 01:50 PM (laMCB)

330 >>We were in Germany for the Cold War. Afterward, you could justify staying for a stable reunification. But then, I think, it was just bureaucratic inertia + "commitment to NATO," not that we couldn't have promised to keep a ready force for deployment on the East Coast of the U.S.

You know what else happened? 70 years of peace and stability and more than a little prosperity.

This didn't happen by accident.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 01:53 PM (OGm46)

331 "That war has been over for a long, long time. That's the kind of sustained commitment I am talking about."

Yup. People blame Obama for pulling out but what is happening there was inevitable once we pulled out, whenever we pulled out. The way he pulled out was stupid, but ISIS is not his fault.

I think that's part of the Bush people's stupidity of going in in the first place. They never leveled with anyone, or else they were delusional themselves. Like we could knock out Saddam and then leave and Iraq would govern itself. We're still in Germany and Japan but no politician on either side of the aisle was remotely serious about what it actually take to do what they were doing in Iraq.

War supporters would say we need to win but they wouldn't be honest (or else, realistic) about what it would actually take to do so.

Nobody is honest about the fact that stabilizing Iraq (without a murderous despot to steamroll everyone) would require occupying it for decades and decades at least. They want to spin it as a 'liberation' not an 'occupation'.

So something like the loss of public support and Obama's pull out is bound to happen sooner or later, because the plan for selling the public on 50 years of occupation seemed to be to try to gloss over it and hope no one notices.

Obama might not have been able to pull out so easily by falsely claiming victory, if Bush hadn't set up the expectation of us pulling out as soon as we got the win all along. Everyone is looking for the exit strategy because no one was willing to make or sell the long term commitment. Basically everyone agreed we were trying to get the hell out as soon as possible.

Which made any long-term objectives we had unrealistic to start with.

Posted by: Not Mitt Romney at August 27, 2015 01:58 PM (TULs6)

332 My thought is that the primary problem in the Middle East is a social justice problem. I suggest we raise an army of social justice warriors and send them over there to set things straight. I think an Army of 500,000 social justice warriors should work.

We should have a ready list of available people from lists of students majoring gender studies, queer studies, black studies, etc.



Posted by: Make America Great Again at August 27, 2015 02:09 PM (LXJ1e)

333 MSNBC Demotes Al Sharpton From 5 Days To One, New Show Airs Sunday Mornings At 8:00 AM

Thats awfully early for me, I guess I'll just have to skip it...I wonder if they cut his pay, probably not, they wouldn't dare.

Posted by: Colin at August 27, 2015 02:36 PM (5LuhY)

334 >>Nobody is honest about the fact that stabilizing Iraq (without a murderous despot to steamroll everyone) would require occupying it for decades and decades at least. They want to spin it as a 'liberation' not an 'occupation'.

That's actually not true at all. Many people in the Bush administration including Gates and Generals like Odienro endorsed staying there for years. It was often talked about in terms of the "South Korean model". Of course, we are still in South Korea many years after that war.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 27, 2015 02:45 PM (OGm46)

335 I was just thinking about Ramadi today.

It was supposedly taken by accident almost, and the Iraqis outnumber ISIS.

Has it been re-taken?

Nope.

Still being encircled or something.

Mosul now has been in ISIS hands for 15 months.

Posted by: Harun at August 27, 2015 03:06 PM (UBBWX)

336 "It was supposedly taken by accident almost, and the Iraqis outnumber ISIS. "

This is absolute bullshit as far as I'm concerned. I don't believe it.

The media went wild with the "they dropped their guns and ran" narrative, which was supposedly what also happened in Mosul in '14.

I never doubted it about Mosul, never had reason - but now I kind of do doubt it.

Who knows what the truth is? I certainly wasn't there. But I can tell you that the Iraqis were fighting for Ramadi for a year and a half.

The battle was going on for a fricken year. That's an awful long time to drop your guns and run without fighting. They fought hard for Ramadi and a couple weeks before it fell they sent in thousands of Hezbollah militia to reinforce it. They didn't run they just lost. I don't know what our press was up to with that one but I don't buy it.

Posted by: Not Mitt Romney at August 27, 2015 03:25 PM (TULs6)

337 And yes, Ramadi is almost completely cut off now. ISIS use to have all the land around it and not the city. Now they have the city but they lost all the land around it.

Posted by: Not Mitt Romney at August 27, 2015 03:25 PM (TULs6)

338 "That's actually not true at all. Many people in the Bush administration including Gates and Generals like Odienro endorsed staying there for years. "

I can't say what the generals are talking about in private but none of the politicians or the press made that clear to the public or tried to sell them on it.

Posted by: Not Mitt Romney at August 27, 2015 03:27 PM (TULs6)

339 Top ... Men...

Posted by: Jane Doe at August 27, 2015 04:20 PM (AU5zP)

340 Gee, I'm sure this molding of intelligence by higher-ups (Bush, Cheney) has never happened before
(Iraq War).

Posted by: carlito at August 27, 2015 05:07 PM (f/+XK)

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