Contrary to necons; Obama must be a military strategy genius

[Mountain Man]

It's off-the-scale idiotic statements like this by those on the right that have let Obama get away with so much killing. More than 22,000 ISIS fighters have been killed by airstrikes. These strikes are not using "nerf guns" they're killing a lot of people. Even worse, 90% of people killed in drone strikes are unintentional causalities.

I wasn't talking about drone strikes, dumbass, but about rules that affect actual boots on the ground. Obama's rules of engagement have devastated US troops.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ules/?page=all
http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...nt-need-reform

[seanD]

He wanted to end Bush's wars in the Middle East, but he's still got troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, and has expanded drone strikes to six countries in total. He wanted to close Guantanamo, but failed. He wanted to help the Libyan people, but his intervention has led to chaos in the country that seems roughly as bad as Gaddafi was. He supported a coup in Honduras, and that's made things worse there. He's been all over the map on Syria and Assad, and his program to train moderate rebels failed so badly that they had literally "four or five" moderate rebel soldiers total after most of them had surrendered their US-supplied weapons to the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. Elsewhere in Syria, militias armed by the pentagon have been fighting militias armed by the CIA. He hasn't been able to destroy ISIS despite tens of thousands of bombing strikes against them killing tens of thousands of people (because a military strategy is not going to work). Under his command, the US military has committed numerous war-crimes ranging from the deliberate bombing of a doctors-without-borders hospital in Afghanistan to bombing weddings and funerals.

Complete successes, which I 100% congratulate Obama for: Iran deal, Cuba.

Adequately resolved: Ukraine.

I don't really think Obama cares about anything unless the public cares. He doesn't care about Guantanamo because that isn't really his failure; he can just blame that on the Republicans. He never wanted troops to leave Iraq; he wanted them to stay, but got kicked out by the Iraqi government. Now he has troops back in without the public saying a word, so that's a success to him. He could have easily pulled troops out of Afghanistan, in fact the government wanted us out. He doesn't care about Afghanistan because, from the perspective of the public, it's out of sight out of mind. He doesn't care about the mess in Libya as long as Gaddafi is gone, so to him it's a success. There are Obama supporters to this day that still think he liberated the Libyan people lol. I remember someone actually started a thread here on the old Tweb gloating about the success of Libya and laughed at us conservative hacks when we brought up the dangers of al-qaeda taking over. That's all that matters; what the public thinks. Obama didn't care about arming terrorist groups in Syria because the public didn't care. As long as he got US troops into Syria is all that mattered. Once Assad is removed, to him will be a success, and when that country spirals into chaos, the public won't care so neither will Obama. He doesn't care about drone strikes killing civilians because the public doesn't care. All he has to do is flash some notorious terrorist leader they supposedly killed with a drone across the TV screen every now and then to justify it, and he knows that's enough. You might want to read up on the Iran deal. That ain't going so well.

[Jaecp]

I'm not sure he can take credit for any Iran, Cuba, or Ukraine. I might be willing to move Iran to 'adequately resolved', though. Otherwise I'm in full agreement with you here.

However, I'm not sure how many of these actions can be placed at Obama's feet. It's not clear who is selecting drone targets, for example.

We are responsible for the actions taken by those under us. A responsibility that is the cost of power

[Carrikature]

We are responsible for the actions taken by those under us. A responsibility that is the cost of power

I don't disagree. It's easier to have a single, prominent scapegoat, though. The risk of pinning responsibility on the leader is failing to ascribe responsibility to the perpetrators.

[Starlight]

I see Trump is going to meet with war-criminal Henry Kissenger, in order to learn some foreign policy from the evil genius himself. Unfortunately I think between now and the general election, the GOP establishment is going to do everything they can to 'educate' Trump until he becomes a version of themselves. They'll suggest to him various people to employ as advisers, and the advice they give him will be that he should follow all the insane policies of John Boehner / Paul Ryan standard insane Republicanism. They just don't get that the voters voted for him in the first place because he was different, or insofar as they do, they don't care about the voters and just want to further their own corporatist agenda.

Seems like by the time the general election rolls around, Trump might be as much war-criminal-esque on foreign policy as Clinton. After all, her mentor on foreign policy was also Henry Kissenger.