Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
The Left believes in the fantasy that socialism is economically viable.
The Right believes in the fantasy that it's still a constitutional republic.
Both lie to themselves that only if the right man/people got in power it would all be fixed. Too much power and money has been concentrated in one place. It'll never be given up short of the collapse of the system. The choice is facing the misery that will take or just killing time till it happens later without any avoidance of the misery.
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished.
[THEATLANTIC] Last week, former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel gave his first extended interview since resigning as Pentagon chief in November 2014. The curated interview with Foreign Policy is worth reading in its entirety, if for nothing else than the insights into how White House officials and staffers micromanaged Department of Defense decisions; Hagel claims that staffers would call generals "asking fifth-level questions that the White House should not be involved in." (This would not be the first or last White House charged with this degree of oversight.)
However, we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... the most revealing moment of the interview was not an instance of White House micromanagement, but rather indecisiveness. In September 2014, in reaction to the horrific videos of U.S. citizen beheadings released by the self-declared Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... , Congress passed legislation mandating that the Pentagon "provide assistance, including training, equipment, supplies, and sustainment, to appropriately vetted elements of the Syrian opposition." The most critical question regarding this policy decision was not whether the program would be effective--almost immediately nobody inside or outside of the Pentagon thought it would be--but what direct military support the United States would provide to the Pentagon-trained rebels in Syria. As I later wrote, initial, limited support to Syrian rebels could escalate to a Bay of Pigs situation, where the U.S.-backed rebels were easily killed or captured, and subsequently U.S. credibility further eroded.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
"Nothing sleeps as well as a clear conscience."
#2
...how White House officials and staffers micromanaged Department of Defense decisions
Those who have no history are bound to repeat the mistakes of real history - On Strategy. Micromanagement from the White House, Part Deux.
A big institutional problem of the Left is their fantasy that war is 'unnatural'. Therefore, they don't study it or understand it and when the time comes 'war is interested in you', they fumble so often and keep repeating lessons unlearned.
#3
If this is actually what happened, it is an extraordinary case of strategic negligence by the White House.
Most likely is what happened. Anyone watching this train wreck (Obama administration) would not be surprised. It is either negligence by design or by incompetence. Is it time to talk about the "I" word?
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
12/21/2015 9:15 Comments ||
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#6
The fact that we have staring us in the face, whether by design or mismanagement or Bush or Obama, is that US meddling in the Middle East only makes matters worse. We need to get the hell outta there and keep those people out of here.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/21/2015 12:14 Comments ||
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#7
We need to get the hell outta there and keep those people out of here.
Alternatively, if there's a compelling reason for us to intervene we should do so with a commitment of nothing less than complete domination of the enemy until completion of the task (to include cessation of the enemy's will to fight).
#8
If they somehow manage to make it out of their little box and strike us in our own homeland then by all means put the hurt on them. But no more nation building.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/21/2015 14:55 Comments ||
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#9
AU, they're hitting outside their box now, you are aware. Also, remaining engaged in theater, even remaining in theater, is not the same as nation building.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
12/21/2015 15:09 Comments ||
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#10
They're only hitting outside their box because our feckless leaders allow them to do so. That's the other part of what I'm saying: Keep them out of here. You don't accomplish that by getting bogged down in Syria. The way to do that is by stopping Muslim immigration and denying visas, rounding up the people who are here with visa from those countries and deporting them.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/21/2015 17:52 Comments ||
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#11
Yes, we've tried nation building and it's not worked well, so instead let's try nation destroying. If we have to intervene, go in and leave nothing but smoking, repeatedly bounced rubble.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
