He admits he doesn't know what to do on Isis/IS, wants his staff to come up with plans and sends out Kerry to assemble yet another 'coalition of the willing'
Meanwhile James Foley seems to have been tortured by waterboarding and we're still waiting for the US senate report to admit the US did indeed torture by that same method.
Stuck between a hard rock and a desert he is, but a nice suit 🙂
#Iraq #WhiteHouse #WhiteSuit #Isis #IS #Foley #Torture #Politics
Like the aborted plan to bomb Syria, only recently resurfacing as a viable strategy after all? +James K
Obama is perhaps the first U.S. president in living memory to place more value on deliberation than the appearance of decisive action.
It's a cultural thing. We Americans buy into the whole 'hard men making hard choices quickly' and 'shoot from the hip' mythology a bit too much. And fast action might look decisive, but it doesn't actually solve more problems than it causes, usually.
A lot of my fellow citizens can't get a handle on Obama because he doesn't pretend to be an action hero waiting to happen, which basically has been the pattern for the last four or five presidencies.
Ah yes, Hillary Clinton's 'hard choices' 🙂 +Curt Thompson
For the record: I like deliberation, pause for some thought and taking your time. Bombing is always way too easy.
I never really see the man smile anymore.
here goes the propaganda machine aka #fauxnewswatchers.
+Max Huijgen Me too. Honestly, I think government does the least harm when it does the least, period. Just collects the taxes, pays the bills and makes sure somebody waters the plants. (Which is to say, keeps up the machinery of a functioning society.)
Whenever a president or congress decides to actually do something, it almost always ends poorly.
The more they call him aloof, the more I trust him. All these news guys are mad because he won't just make something up so they can have some copy. And he isn't going to kiss up to the social whirl of DC just to get some schmoozy coverage. Kennedy said that being President was always about having to choose between two (or more) bad things, what was the least worst. I'm with +Catherine Maguire in the part where I would not want that job.
All these double negatives confuse me +Catherine Maguire Do you:
a) trust Obama more than Blair
b) trust Blair more than Obama
c) Don't you like Obama's shoes (what about his beige suit?)
d) do you regularly walk in man's shoes?
e) if you prefer thinking men how long can they take?
The President is right in taking this approach. What do Republicans want? Surely you're not suggesting a nuclear exchange with Russia.
+Ernie Vega Republicans want to win. Period. They could care less about our country or the world. They have certainly proved that repeatedly.
Seeing how the conflicts in the middle east have been going on for a few thousand years, yeah it's no suprise that nobody can figure out what to do w/ that region. It's no strike against Obama, this is just how the region is and always has been.
I doubt we can say whether he is the first president to put more value on deliberation… However, sometimes imperfect action is better than more deliberation. We simply need to stop judging actions taken once hindsight is available and used to judge action taken in the past when such hindsight was not available when action was taken…
If Bush had been more reflective, we'd be two trillion dollars richer, thousands of American soldiers would still be alive and there would have been no Isis.
Blame it on Bush. end of story.
+James Taylor I love your insight here. I am sick at heart at the kind of malicious "analysis" done by those who can see all the issues because of hindsight. I still believe that we are amazingly blessed by men of good will in our government, especially our military. The more you get to know them (especially the lower rungs), the more you come to appreciate how much we owe their willingness to do the right thing even in awful circumstances. To repeat, in a different way, I would not want that job either. I sure do respect those who take on those responsibilities. I could never do it. [BTW, I don't need to use "men and women" anymore, I am perfectly fine with the use of "men" as referring to "all mankind.]
+Daphne Sylk If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. It is WE the people who got what we voted for. W told us what he was going to do, then did it. Go check it out. He was totally consistent with what he said he would do. He was exactly the same person in office as he was as governor of Texas. (Enjoy "Shrub" for a good read of all the difficult decisions the man made. <sigh>)
That's the thing about a republic: WE make the decisions. And WE must take some responsibility. Then again, it's hard to know if we really did make that decision ("The Selection").
I say give the man another year or two, he will surly come up with something.
+Azrael Knight ;')
"Blame it on Bush"- I agree! But, didn't this new guy already blame it on Bush? Didn't he promise to end Bush's mistake and fails after nigh 6 years to do so?
Frankly, I'm in the " What happened to Silent Cal" group…whenever our government acts, and this administration particularly so, it is almost always a mistake (as was said above).
Let's all tell the enemy we have no idea how to deal with them! Makes perfect sense!
+Jeanmarie Matteson No, let's tell them every single damned thing we're going to do second by second so they'll know all our thinking. Yeah, that'll work.
cut any supplies to ISIL through targeted airstrikes so that they cannot grow or spread.
…the analogy used often seems to be that of cancer.
I think the doubt might be on how to handle it in the press.
war on humanity must stop nowwwwwwwwwww
Well, if you dig a hole deep enough, eventually you will not be able to get out anymore.
The US has been behaving as the self-appointed police of the world for decades, and in the process of doing so they have started things in numerous countries around the world without seeing (or thinking) them completely through. Despite mostly good intentions, this has left bigger and smaller messes in their wake and we have now come to a point that the collective mess is becoming too big to clean or to control.
Once the US backs off from the idea that everything that works in the US will work everywhere and in every human being regardless of where they live or what they believe is a little American just waiting to come out, maybe things will get better. That is, if they can resist the urge to interfere with everything they may not like.
American values and beliefs are not the universal means to greatness for everyone. Thank God. Maybe one day we will live in a world where everybody feels in their core being that every human being is equal, while acknowledging we are all vastly different in our values, beliefs, needs and desires. Maybe then we can clean up the mess of our past.
Can someone tell him to stay out of it! Please, they have a chance to the place before but they did nothing, rather introduce more corruption, crimes, and killing a lot of people as much as 1.3 millions. for what? To look for one man! Does that make any sense.
And now he wants to go there. They don't need him. The US only causes problem to people.
US screams, Assad uses chemicals on his people, same tactics said about Saddam, but same US uses Chemical in Faluja and no body talk about it. Simple because they controls the press.
+Sonja Futerman if it was that easy :/
When people have radical ideas to the extent of beheading other humans, then humanity have to stand up against these evil humans!
Does one man's life worth more than others? IDF have been killing a lot of press members and nobody scream but one US, the whole world is shaken. What an hypocrisy!
good views
I really want to like Google+, but the group think and confirmation bias are out of control here from my vantage point. Not only on this comment thread, but on nearly every post flying through my feed. At least the Facebook groups and convos I engage with have ample voices on all sides of issues.
I find that with Google + if you spend a day or so blocking the over the top stuff it tends to settle down.
+Meg Tufano oh please dear lady. Bush fabricated WMDs in Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. Bush was and is a dolt, Cheney was and is a snarling psychopath.
I voted for Bush and Obama both terms of their respective presidencies. In hindsight I prefer GW Bush's leadership on foreign policy.
What about our Marine in Mexico. The least he can do is get this man home. Remember Benghazi!
Even if he brought him home he would still be crucified for the bad decisions everyone in the world in trouble made, Given all the shit our planet gets itself into before and during his presidency the contracts before his presidency and the houses anger of their constant stupidity not being able to solve the problem their job expects them to do at least our president has the stuff to admit his hands are tied notlie llike other presidents have promissory "we are working on it" Our president in my opinion deserves a medal of "my god I survived presidency. We are still here.
Even if he brought him home he would still be crucified for the bad decisions everyone in the world in trouble made, Given all the shit our planet gets itself into before and during his presidency the contracts before his presidency and the houses anger of their constant stupidity not being able to solve the problem their job expects them to do at least our president has the stuff to admit his hands are tied notlie llike other presidents have promissory "we are working on it" Our president in my opinion deserves a medal of "my god I survived presidency. We are still here.
+Scott Goins we prosecute Mexican citizens… they have a right to their day in court. I lived and worked for many years in military border towns and we knew better than to do what he did. He got himself into this mess, not the president.
+Marc Franklin that may be true but the president gave up not 1, not 2, but 5 known terrorists to the enemy for a deserter! Breaking multiple laws in the process including replenishing the enemy and negotiating with the enemy without going through congress… This country supposedly doesn't negotiate with terrorists but this president did. I had high hopes for Obama but we are about to be bankrupt and the possibility to have another 9/11 is announced and he goes to do fundraisers? He should be trying to fix our almost 18 trillion debt, focus on securing our boarders, stop making the Ferguson tragedy into a political mess and focus on the black on black killings in Chicago which is the real problem. If they were going to focus and crucify a white cop killing an unarmed back male then they should have crucified the cops in NY I believe who killed that man with a choke hold who was caught on tape and not the Ferguson cop before knowing the evidence. This is getting ridiculous.
+Daphne Sylk Could not agree with you more, not sure why you think I wouldn't!!!!
+Jacob H well, election season is coming. Good luck. 👌
+Marc Franklin I'm taking this election season off. Completely.
I, for one, think that suit looks great, especially with his silvered hair.
Only you +Angyl understood what this post was all about 😉
Or he just waiting for ISIS to finish all the people in iraq..or at least what left of them :/
+Leo Morales Sr. When do we stop blaming it on Bush. I've got an idea why don't we just blame the whole mess on George Washington Thomas Jefferson John Adams and the rest of the founding fathers. I mean after all if they understood up to King George….
+Daphne Sylk well if this fabricated WMD's Bill Clinton must have fabricated them too because he's the first one to say that Saddam had them
+Herb Wells That's how we got fooled! He DID have them! And the inspectors inspected them and that went on for a while. Then when we made a little bigger deal of it (drew a line in the, uh, plutonium), Saddam apparently got RID of them! But wouldn't let the inspectors in to see that he had done that.
W was the not the brightest bulb, but he did not make this up!
WHY Saddam did that (did not let the inspectors in) mystifies me: maybe he wasn't the brightest bulb either. (Read up on Saddam's life, wow, a nastier person? Hard to find.) I suspect it was because he did not think we'd follow through.
Uh, we did.
Something to be said for having a crazy President. Or one that just won't tell the world what he's thinking. The enemy may think they have us figured out and make a mistake.
I cannot tell you how many Iraqis in Holland thanked me personally. Whatever you think about this American venture, there are a whole lot of people (mostly Kurds) who were being killed as sport and they "got it" that we were trying to save innocent people.
And you know where the road of good intentions leads, right? <sigh>
+Meg Tufano Spot on.
+Jeremy Dearringer
So you prefer to waterboard someone, instead of diplomacy, oh I see.
+Leo Morales Sr. I am not against waterboarding. So you think diplomacy always works, oh I see.
+Jeremy Dearringer
You'll slowly progress from waterboarding into keeping prisoners awake with loud music, then you will let the dogs out on them, then you will stand them on a box with wires attached to a fake bomb, oh I see.
+Leo Morales Sr. I'd risk accidentally doing all of the above to 100 innocent grown men if I thought I could save a handful of innocent women and children in the process. I'd also choose to have all of the above done to myself if I thought it may save a handful of innocent women and children.
^^ No guarantees necessary for my scenarios above.
+Leo Morales Sr. And no need to slowly progress. I'd already do everything you've mentioned to anyone in ISIS if I thought it would save more children from being beheaded.
Now Saddam Hussein was a bit different. He had infants murdered in front of their mothers as a form of torture. And he wasn't doing it because he thought it would save innocent women and children.
+Jeremy Dearringer
So you are the same as the terrorists, no difference there. Are you related to Cheney?
+Leo Morales Sr. Yup. I'm a terrorist of fuckers that terrorize children. All damn day. I don't know Cheney much, but I'd gladly and proudly admit GW Bush as a relative if he was.
I wouldn't technically be a terrorist by this definition – "a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims."
I wouldn't be using terrorism to pursue "political aims".