Obama’s Decision Stirs Doubts About America’s Resolve? GREAT!!!

15 Comments

1. 

   Arthur Gilroy on September 2, 2013 at 7:10 am

   Watch.

   If he loses this congressional approval gambit, his ass will have been thoroughly kicked. Lame duck? Badly bruised lame duck.

   If he wins that gambit, the ass-kicking will take longer. It will take until the anti-Assad thing fails to produce anything but more war.

   Watch.

   He blew it, this time.

   Watch.

   Americans have had just about enough of this PermaGov bullshit.

   Watch.

   Even the dummies down at the local laundromat know what’s up now.

   Bet on it.

   Almost no one trusts this government anymore.

   RatPubs on top or Demrats.

   Watch.

   I see a 2014 American Spring in the works.

   

   Watch.

   AG

   • 

     Don Durito on September 2, 2013 at 11:46 am

     Also tells lies.

   • 

     esquimaux on September 2, 2013 at 6:36 pm

     >>If he loses this congressional approval gambit, his ass will have been thoroughly kicked.

     Please define what is winning and what is losing in this game. IMO, not getting approval would be a win for the American people.

     • 

       Arthur Gilroy on September 2, 2013 at 6:39 pm

       …not getting approval would be a win for the American people.

       I agree, esquimaux.

       So would a loss for the PermaGov, no matter which “party” they claim to represent.

       AG

2. 

   Arthur Gilroy on September 2, 2013 at 7:36 am

   That’s even better than the laundromat users.

   (Thank you, Hurriah.)

   Washington Post:

   U.S. military officers have deep doubts about impact, wisdom of a U.S. strike on Syria

   The Obama administration’s plan to launch a military strike against Syria is being received with serious reservations by many in the U.S. military, which is coping with the scars of two lengthy wars and a rapidly contracting budget, according to current and former officers.

   Having assumed for months that the United States was unlikely to intervene militarily in Syria, the Defense Department has been thrust onto a war footing that has made many in the armed services uneasy, according to interviews with more than a dozen military officers ranging from captains to a four-star general.

   Former and current officers, many with the painful lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan on their minds, said the main reservations concern the potential unintended consequences of launching cruise missiles against Syria.

   Some questioned the use of military force as a punitive measure and suggested that the White House lacks a coherent strategy. If the administration is ambivalent about the wisdom of defeating or crippling the Syrian leader, possibly setting the stage for Damascus to fall to fundamentalist rebels, they said, the military objective of strikes on Assad’s military targets is at best ambiguous.

   “There’s a broad naivete in the political class about America’s obligations in foreign policy issues, and scary simplicity about the effects that employing American military power can achieve,” said retired Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, who served as director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the run-up to the Iraq war, noting that many of his contemporaries are alarmed by the plan.

   New cycle of attacks?

   Marine Lt. Col. Gordon Miller, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, warned this week of “potentially devastating consequences, including a fresh round of chemical weapons attacks and a military response by Israel.”

   “If President [Bashar al-Assad] were to absorb the strikes and use chemical weapons again, this would be a significant blow to the United States’ credibility and it would be compelled to escalate the assault on Syria to achieve the original objectives,” Miller wrote in a commentary for the think tank.

   —snip—

   Dempsey’s warning

   Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has warned in great detail about the risks and pitfalls of U.S. military intervention in Syria.

   “As we weigh our options, we should be able to conclude with some confidence that use of force will move us toward the intended outcome,” Dempsey wrote last month in a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next. Deeper involvement is hard to avoid.”

   Dempsey has not spoken publicly about the administration’s planned strike on Syria, and it is unclear to what extent his position shifted after last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack. Dempsey said this month in an interview with ABC News that the lessons of Iraq weigh heavily on his calculations regarding Syria.

   “It has branded in me the idea that the use of military power must be part of an overall strategic solution that includes international partners and a whole of government,” he said in the Aug. 4 interview. “Simply the application of force rarely produces and, in fact, maybe never produces the outcome we seek.”

   The recently retired head of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. James Mattis, said last month at a security conference that the United States has “no moral obligation to do the impossible” in Syria. “If Americans take ownership of this, this is going to be a full-throated, very, very serious war,” said Mattis, who as Centcom chief oversaw planning for a range of U.S. military responses in Syria.

   The potential consequences of a U.S. strike include a retaliatory attack by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — which supports Assad — on Israel, as well as cyberattacks on U.S. targets and infrastructure, U.S. military officials said.

   “What is the political end state we’re trying to achieve?” said a retired senior officer involved in Middle East operational planning who said his concerns are widely shared by active-duty military leaders. “I don’t know what it is. We say it’s not regime change. If it’s punishment, there are other ways to punish.” The former senior officer said that those who are expressing alarm at the risks inherent in the plan “are not being heard other than in a pro-forma manner.”

   President Obama said in a PBS interview on Wednesday that he is not contemplating a lengthy engagement, but instead “limited, tailored approaches.”

   A retired Central Command officer said the administration’s plan would “gravely disappoint our allies and accomplish little other than to be seen as doing something.”

   “It will be seen as a half measure by our allies in the Middle East,” the officer said. “Iran and Syria will portray it as proof that the U.S. is unwilling to defend its interests in the region.”

   —snip—

   Great.

   Even the military has seen the light. Unwinnable wars don’t work.

   Obama?

   Maybe not as smart as advertised.

   Watch.

   AG

3. 

   Marie2 on September 2, 2013 at 12:50 pm

   Please stop with you ridiculous and exceedingly simplistic “solution.”

   Racism, misogyny, and homophobia aren’t meaningless quirks of the Pauls or libertarianism, they are features of it.  Letting this crap rip leads to exactly what exists in the KSA and existed in Afghanistan before the stupid cold war warriors decided to turn it into a proxy battleground.

   Buying into that schtick makes you look like as big a sucker as those that slavishly follow Democrats or the non-Paul wing of the GOP.  It’s such slim pickings here to enlist others to join the Paul GOP takeover that hanging here seems not to be an efficient use of your recruitment efforts.

   • 

     Shaun Appleby on September 2, 2013 at 6:01 pm

     Who was it who commented, “What Arthur said” a few short hours ago?

     • 

       Arthur Gilroy on September 2, 2013 at 6:42 pm

       I am used to it, Shaun. I’m ok here w/what I am saying as long as I do not support the only people in a possible position of some national political power who are actively opposing what is happening here.

       So it goes.

       Complaint is cheap but action is scary.

       AG

       • 

         Shaun Appleby on September 2, 2013 at 7:27 pm

         Arthur, on balance I probably agree with you as much about some things as I do anyone else around here about others.

       • 

         Don Durito on September 2, 2013 at 10:11 pm

         Complaint is cheap but action is scary.

         As indeed it has historically been.

         There has been an awakening globally – as the events of 2011 indicated – and in the US – as the Wisconsin Spring, and even more so Occupy demonstrated. Occupy was and is in may respects quite flawed, but if nothing else a good number of people actually showed up and tried. If the only measure is vote counts on Presidential elections, then yeah, that would not meet your standard of “viability” – although it would certainly have avoided lesser-evilism, as consorting with the Pauls would require, given their rather gloomy record on matters of economic and social justice.

     • 

       Marie2 on September 2, 2013 at 7:39 pm

       We all have a clinker or two in our thinker.  Arthur just has a really big clinker with his Ron Paul fetish.

       • 

         Shaun Appleby on September 2, 2013 at 7:59 pm

         A “clinker in our thinker.” Food for thought for all of us.

       • 

         Arthur Gilroy on September 2, 2013 at 10:36 pm

         This Paul thing is not a “fetish,” marie2. It is simply the only viable option. Name one other nationally recognized politician who is calling out the PermaGov on every level. Every level, from international affairs right on through the real value of our so-called “dollar.” Playing pattycake with the Uniparty/PermaGov has not worked from the time I began to become politically conscious…say the JFK assassination….right on through 9 1/2 presidents. (9.5. Jimmy Carter was a glitch in the fix machine…he didn’t last long, you might have noticed.) It’s been a steady downhill course through those 50 years. I am ready to gamble. The non-gambles/fixes haven’t worked out. I ask you in all seriousness…what’s left? Just sit around until the house of cards falls? Not in my nature. Sorry. Time to go for broke.

         ALL IN!!!

         The bet doesn;’ work out? I ask you…what were the chances of the PermaGov shit “working out?”

         Borg Central?

         

         No thanks.

         I’ll take my chances.

         You?

         AG

         • 

           Marie2 on September 2, 2013 at 11:02 pm

           Like all federal, state, and local institutions, the Federal Reserve has been deeply compromised in the past forty odd years.  Right along with the rise in the stature, influence, and power of the free market libertarians.  So, we should look to a libertarian for new fixes?  With Paul Bucks?

           So what that Ron Paul, an elderly retired politician, gets some things right? He’s not the only one that does.  Dennis Kucinich does as well and without all the nasty bits (and those are large nasty bits) that come in the Ron Paul package.  His son is nothing but a mini-Ron and is easily cowed by McConnell.  They’ve got a nice little family cottage business going for themselves.  No risk and continued government employment in red districts as they run back to the GOP fold at election time.  And very cult-like which is why they are a waste of any political consideration.  

         • 

           Shaun Appleby on September 2, 2013 at 11:58 pm

           This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember, all I’m offering is the truth – nothing more.