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Post by jdredd on Aug 28, 2014 21:56:58 GMT -5
I don't think "Iraq goes solo" is a relevant thread anymore, since obviously we are not letting Iraq go solo. But IS is now the biggest baddies on the block, or so I'm being told over and over. The thing is, you know I'm not buying any of this BS, but the real question is, are the Millennials buying it all? Do they care, or even need to?
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Post by jdredd on Aug 30, 2014 19:13:34 GMT -5
www.cnn.com/2014/08/30/us/kerry-isis/index.html?hpt=hp_bn1"(CNN) -- ISIS is a cancer that must be stamped out, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry wrote Saturday in an opinion piece for The New York Times. Kerry called the Islamist extremist group, known for beheadings, crucifixions and terror campaigns against religious and ethnic minorities, a "unifying threat to a broad array of countries" that needs to be confronted. His article appears in the aftermath of the political uproar that engulfed the White House this week after President Barack Obama said "we don't have a strategy" on ISIS in Syria." OK, Millennials, here is a big cheese Boomer TELLING you that you have to worry about ISIS, so you better listen...
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Post by jdredd on Sept 3, 2014 15:07:26 GMT -5
I'm loving this slow motion ISIS Crisis. It's really testing Obummer and the West. Not that the GOP has any answers either. Old Ted Cruz chimed in with "Bomb them back to the stone age". Real original, Ted, but it could be fun to watch him try in 2017 if he gets the chance.
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Post by jdredd on Sept 7, 2014 14:42:13 GMT -5
www.cnn.com/2014/09/07/politics/obama-isis-speech/index.html?hpt=hp_t1"(CNN) -- President Barack Obama will address the country Wednesday to explain to the nation "what our game plan is going forward" in the fight against ISIS. In an interview that aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Obama expressed confidence that the United States, with help from regional partners, will be able to wipe out the terror organization. "I just want the American people to understand the nature of the threat and how we're going to deal with it and to have confidence that we'll be able to deal with it," the President told interviewer ck Todd." So Obama's Crusade Against ISIS is gaining the Big Mo. I'm confident, that after almost 24 years of our Excellent Iraqi Adventure, we are on the verge of solving Iraq's problems. Yeah, right.
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Post by jdredd on Sept 8, 2014 16:17:34 GMT -5
NYT Headlines today: "Destroying ISIS May Take 3 Years, White House Says". Izzat so? That will make 26 years of America's Excellent Iraq Adventure. Will America's oblivious public go along with it? Of course they will.
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Post by jdredd on Sept 9, 2014 14:27:44 GMT -5
www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/09/dick-cheney-republicans-military-isis"Former vice-president Dick Cheney met behind closed doors with Republican members of Congress on Tuesday to urge them to adopt a more muscular military posture in the Middle East. The private meeting came as leading Republican hawks are clamouring for a ramped-up confrontation with the Islamic State (Isis) militant group, with some openly discussing the redeployment of ground troops in Iraq. Cheney did not address the specifics of any military involvement in the Middle East, according to several people present at the meeting, which took place in the Capitol Hill Club and was open to all House Republicans. But he decried what Republicans perceive to be president Barack Obama’s “weakness”, said legislators should boost military spending and provided a neo-conservative analysis of the conflict embroiling the Middle East." Darth Cheney drumbeats for war. The bottom line? More defense spending, of course. Follow the money, as always. But you Millennials are made of money, so why worry?
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Post by jdredd on Sept 9, 2014 21:38:43 GMT -5
www.cnn.com/2014/09/09/politics/hawks-isis-airstrikes/index.html?hpt=hp_c2"(CNN) -- On the eve of President Obama's speech laying out his strategy to combat the terror group ISIS, national security hawks are demanding the United States authorize airstrikes against the group's leaders. "We need to be targeting the top ISIS military and strategic leadership," said Danielle Pletka at the American Enterprise Institute. "Our policy up 'til now hasn't been good enough. It's a day late and a dollar short, and that's why ISIS is a threat to the United States." "The President's former national security adviser, retired Gen. James L. Jones, said he would be very surprised if the President did not instruct the military to target the head of ISIS at some point. "When the President gives the word, it will be a formidable capability that we launch against this organization, and perhaps against him." "But Patrick Johnston with the RAND Corp., who studied dozens of past cases where extremist groups were decapitated, found that killing a group's leaders can increase the odds of defeating it by 25% to 30%." We are supposed to listen to these guys because...?
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Post by jdredd on Sept 10, 2014 0:27:06 GMT -5
online.wsj.com/articles/wsj-nbc-poll-finds-that-almost-two-thirds-of-americans-back-attacking-militants-1410301920"President Barack Obama will lay out plans Wednesday to combat Islamic State to an American public that has grown increasingly hawkish in the wake of the militant group's videotaped beheadings of two U.S. journalists. Almost two-thirds of respondents in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll believe it is in the nation's interest to confront the group, known as ISIS and as ISIL, which has swept through Syria and northern Iraq. Only 13% said action wasn't in the national interest." "Asked what type of military response was appropriate, some 40% of those polled said action against ISIS should be limited to airstrikes and an additional 34% were willing to use both airstrikes and commit U.S. ground troops—a remarkable mood swing for an electorate that just a year ago recoiled at Mr. Obama's proposal to launch airstrikes against Syria." Americans sure have a short memory. Most people were gung-ho about invading Iraq in 2003, but when things didn't go so well, lots of people had second thoughts. Why does anyone think things will go better this time?
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Post by jdredd on Sept 10, 2014 14:07:47 GMT -5
So I'm guessing tonight Obummer is going to tell us why we need to bomb not just Iraq, but Syria too. Kind of reminds me of when Nixon invaded Cambodia. In fact, I think my new name for him is Barack Nixon. But unlike 1970, the Millennials won't even look up from their video game screens to notice. And I am supposed to feel bad for the debts we Boomers are leaving them? Not a chance.
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Post by jdredd on Sept 11, 2014 14:09:53 GMT -5
What I want to know is how are the Republicans going to slam Obama now on his Middle East policies when he is giving them what they want, which is, of course, more war? I suppose they will find a way.
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Post by jdredd on Sept 12, 2014 18:47:51 GMT -5
Oh, now I remember how the Republicans are going to continue to slam Obama. Whatever he does to the IS, it's not going to be enough.
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Post by jdredd on Sept 23, 2014 2:45:20 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/article/388583/more-defense-dollars-now-editors"Congressional Republicans cannot do much to make President Obama devise a credible strategy to defeat the Islamic State, or to counter Russian expansionism. There is one thing they can do, however, to contribute to the recovery of American strength overseas, particularly if they take the Senate this fall. They can make it clear that they intend for the next president to have the military means at his disposal to meet whatever threats we face. Those capabilities are steadily and quickly eroding. Budget cuts will force the Army to further scale back training for units based in the United States, allowing only for training to company level (one hundred or so troops). The size of the Army is being reduced to pre–World War II levels. The Navy has fewer ships than at any time since before World War I; the Air Force is smaller (and flying older aircraft) than at any time since its founding." Once again, the bottom line of our foreign policy is the bottom line of defense contractors. This has been going on since 1945 and shows no sign of abating in the near future. While the Millennials are marching to protest the long term threat of climate change, they seem indifferent to the expenditure of billions to fight a dubious IS threat in the short term. And it's them who will be paying for it for decades to come. But I won't...
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Post by jdredd on Sept 29, 2014 13:10:12 GMT -5
As I noted in the Latin America thread, the powers-that-be in the State Department are still making war on anyone even remotely leftist. And yet they expect us lefties to jump on the anti-Islamist bandwagon with the likes of Ted Cruz. Well, sorry if I lack enthusiasm for the new Crusades. If the Millennials buy into it, good luck with that but I'm sitting it out.
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Post by jdredd on Sept 29, 2014 16:30:32 GMT -5
Or, to put it another way, you righties want us lefties to join your War on Islam while you continue to call us every derogatory name in the book and work against everything we believe in. Sorry, some lefties with no pride can put up with that but I'm not one of them.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 3, 2014 12:23:02 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/opinion/the-fundamental-horror-of-isis.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0"The mind rebels at the reports of cruelty by the Islamic State, the beheadings, crucifixions, tortures, rapes and slaughter of captives, children, women, Christians, Shiites. The evidence is there on YouTube, in gruesome images and the cries of witnesses too numerous to deny or doubt. Even in a part of the world where terror has been perversely enshrined as a legitimate weapon by Islamist zealots, the Islamic State — led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi — stands alone in its deliberate, systematic and public savagery." Aw heck, NYT, my mind is rebelling all the time. Right now it is rebelling about the liberal NYT cheerleading for more war in the Middle East. Those wacky Arabs have been murdering each other (and Westerners stupid enough to go there) for thousands of years (read the Bible). Alas, such is the nature of our present status quo that we are destined to stick our noses into that cesspool for decades to come. I was hoping the Millennials might break the chain, but it looks like they are as subservient to the Powers-that-be as their parents and grandparents. So be it.
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