Not sure I agree. For instance, many including myself were supporting Bush after 9/11. It wasn't until the real motivation for the policy was exposed that support really eroded. This is a fundamental difference from today...

Bush didn't do anything during the Georgia event and granted it was a different scenario. After, Obama admin relations under Medvedev were generally constructive until Putin came back.

It's a different phase of the post Cold War world.

-spence

I TOLD YOU SO.. :love:

I think;

Spence is one of the most educated and intelligent members here, who can state a compelling argument with a lot of references to back up his argument

I think;

Except for the above reference for supporting Bush, post 9/11, Spence posts views that exclusively reflect a Democratic view. Period.

I think;

Spence should be working for the Democratic party or working for a politician writing and running campaigns. (you missed your calling)

I think;

Obama is out of his league here. I will leave it at that. Putin wins this round by default.

I think;

Putin is still KGB, always will be KGB. The world was stupid to think anything less.

I think;

The US learned nothing from the Soviets ten years in Afghanistan. Place is the absolute worst shiithole on the face of the planet. Been there..... Need to get our troops out of there ASAP.

X 2

It still sticks in my craw that we went into Afghanistan to knock out training camps and lost so many of our young hero's. We should have got the job done by using high tech hits and special forces as needed.

OK, since you ask for specificity, "Name specific Obama policy decisions" that "we need" for "a unified long-term strategy."

yeah...i think we're also told that Obama is one of the most educated and intelligent presidents ever, yet he distorts facts and bends the truth to back up his compelling arguments routinely and is in the middle of a disastrous presidency...maybe "most educated and intelligent" is overrated?:rotf2:

Here's the thing about the overly educated , which I'm not lumping spence in with, they tend to be somewhat brainwashed by our liberal education system and somewhat isolated from the reality of the working blue collar worker.
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Since when does the ability to put a shine on a turd make one seem educated?
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brainwashed? Its called being educated to be able to think for yourself and form individual opinions.

The working blue collar worker is going to be brainwashed by talk radio and what he is spoon fed by what ever news source he watches and the less educated you are, generally the more attracted you are to news sources that are opinion based because guess what...you don't have to think to form your opinions, they are given to you.

Now don't get me wrong here.. you get idiotic libs who suck off of Rachael Maddow's tit as well... :yak5:

I thought Maddow was a guy ?
Ya these college kids really are free thinkers
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Agree. Most have never been out in the real world as either a blue or white collar worker. They spend all their years in higher education reading and studying books authored by Professors who did the same thing.

Give me a blue or white collar worker any day ,who has either run or been in business ,over the over the highly educated to serve in any political office.
Common sense comes from experience in the real world.

Debuch, Great summary of the failed policies of the Administration leading up to the Ukraine crisis.

I think Spence is prob. still waiting for you to tell use about the failures and misjudgements.

I'd also like to hear what Pres. Obama should have done differently re Ukraine. And also pls. contrast that with what Pres. Bush did about the Russian invasion of Georgia so we can see the difference.

Thanks

I think you have a point when you say that Obama could not have done much to stop Putin in the Ukraine. It's also worth noting that in the 2012 debate, when Romney speculated that Russia would be a major foreign policy challenge for the next President, Obama mocked him for it. Who was right, and who was wrong? It shows, yet again, Obama's amazing inability to see how things will play out (said the Surge would not work, said the Stimulus would keep unemployment below 8%, said I could keep my doctor, said 8 jillion jobs were shovel-ready, etc).

"I also wonder how much petty domestic undermining of Obama by Republicans in Congress has emboldened our adversaries"

None. How's that for an answer. I don't think our enemies are emboldened by the GOP. Our enemies do get emboldened, when Obama lets pakistan improson the doctor who told us where Bin Laden was. Why would anyone, anywhere, stick their necks out for us? This is how Obama repays our fiends who help us at great risk to themselves?

He's a joke.

"we need a unified long-term strategy"

Well, that should be easy. Because when he got elected in 2008, I heard a lot of talk about how, unlike Bush, Obama would be able to build effective coalitions because Obama had so much charm, he would make everyone love us. (2 days later, Chicago was the first city cut from the prospective list of Olympic host cities, which tells you how much validity there was to that claim).

Not much difference (some probably not worth mentioning), certainly not in the outcome. And, since there is so little meaningful difference, the outcome was, predictably, the same. Putin understood that there would be little difference and he got the similar outcome that he knew he would get. Except what he learned enabled him to achieve that outcome much easier. The Georgian invasion actually involved war and physical losses. But, knowing that Obama wouldn't act differently than Bush, it was no difficult task to take Crimea.

One would hope that wise administrations would learn from the lessons of history. Putin did. The EU, Ukraine, the U.S., apparently, didn't.

What could Obama (the U.S.), the EU, and the Ukraine have done differently. A great deal. But that would have required a correct view of the situation, and the will to use overwhelming force against Putin's force. But that is SOOOO not 21st century. (Bush used the exact words that Kerry used--"such action is unacceptable in the 21st. century." The West used diplomacy in the Georgian thing. They choose to do the same in the Ukraine situation. Oh yeah, that was tried before WWI and WWII. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is . . .

War is hell. Either go in to the max, or don't go in at all. If you don't stand up to aggression, aggression will win. Maybe it's different now. Maybe the New World Order will seduce Russia, and China, and the Middle East, and All of Africa, and . . . to join in the economic love-fest. That is possible. Maybe not just yet. A few ethnic and religious squabbles to settle first. Like Spence says, we need a unified long term strategy. DAMN but its hard to get everybody to give up their little personality and melt into the great kumbaya.

In the meantime, Bush was an idiot and Obama is brilliant . . . and there is so little difference in much of what they do/did . . .

Bush-did-it-too, but Obama will do it better.

I hope so . . . or not. There is, in my opinion, a flaw in their fundamentals, if they have them. But the 21st century somehow is this living entity that has progressed out of war and divisive differences. It is the century in which we will all be "united," in which differences will be abolished, in which we will all be peacefully free to do those things, the rather few things, that will be left to do.

what's Putin's next strategic move.....? hmmm?

now that he's gained an inch

Paul, I'll answer Spence after he answers the 4 or 5 of my questions directed to him that he failed to answer over the past few months. You must have missed my post complimenting Debuch on his summary of the policy failures leading up to Ukraine. My summary would be no different.
When it comes to what's happening now in the Ukraine vs what Bush did in
Georgia I'll say "What difference does it make." It's history vs the present that needs a Leader to solve the present problem.
It won't be solved by the President spending time on the Ellen DeGeneres
show trying to sell Obamacare.

Yea, the idea of world leaders trying to collaborate is pretty offensive is it not? I'd note that:

A) US/Russia relations were advancing under Medvedev including further reductions in nuclear weapons via New Start.

and...

B) Obama may have scrapped Bush's missile defense plan, but he replaced it with something just as effective or according to Robert Gates even better...


Nice, blame it on Billy Jean King. Good lord, you're starting to sound like Jim.

Syria may have been clumsy at times but I think Russia was actually worried we'd take military action. They responded and now Syrian WMD is being destroyed. I'd like to hear your better solution...do nothing? Invade? How well would that have gone over?

Unfortunately we try and actually care about people. It's a bit inconsistent, but I wouldn't attempt to peg it on any one President.

I'd go back to several good books I've referenced in the past...we've become too reliant on militaristic quick fixes and lost the art of leaning into an adversary.

Even on matters less than war, measurement should be taken. I guarantee you Russia looks at the position of all sides of Congress to evaluate what room the Administration has to move within. Yes there are doves and hawks, but petty disrespect is far worse.

Completely disagree. This was a defensive action, and he did only what he thought he could get away with. Putin fears the EU and Nato because they will destroy the counter reforms Putin has used to maintain power.

The situation in the Ukraine was if anything the result of a failed bribe attempt. The annexation of Crimea was via intimidation. These actions have no sustainable legs. We may be very well witnessing the last flash of the USSR fading into memory...

We've already buffered our defenses with a more effective missile defense.

Looks at the unity with the EU and the impact. The Ruble is at a record low. The Russian market has dropped 10% this month. Money is flooding out of Russian banks. Their 3rd world economy is on the brink of recession.

And now Germany, perhaps the most important EU nation is warning on harsher economic sanctions.

I'd say this is being played pretty well.

-spence

THE HAGUE Thu Mar 6, 2014 (Reuters) - Syria will miss a major deadline next week in the program to destroy its chemical weapons production facilities, sources at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said on Thursday.

Damascus has already missed several deadlines laid out in the agreement.

"That will definitely be missed," said an official involved in discussions with Syria, referring to the March 15 deadline.

"DEADLINES IGNORED"

Syria is not taking the deadline for the destruction of production facilities seriously, another source at the OPCW said on Thursday.

"They are not doing things in the time frame they promised they would," the source said. "The process is in volatile waters."


Putin must be shaking in his boots :rotf2:

But several months later, the problem has not just disappeared as the president hoped it would. The American people may be no more interested in dealing with Syria today than they were last August, but at least Secretary of State John Kerry seems willing to admit, albeit privately, that the administration has been party to a complete disaster that may well come back to haunt the U.S. in a catastrophic way.

The connection to the Iran nuclear talks can’t be denied. Syria did far more than highlight the irresolution of Obama’s foreign policy. It gave a textbook illustration of the mortal dangers of weakness on the international stage. That weakness was not lost on Iran when it negotiated an interim nuclear deal in which the U.S. discarded its economic and military leverage and tacitly recognized Tehran’s “right” to enrich uranium. Just as Assad believes the current diplomatic track in Syria will not undermine his rule, so, too, his Iranian backers are understandably confident of their ability to negotiate and achieve Western recognition for their nuclear program. And just as America’s inability to act in Syria may have engendered a powerful al-Qaeda enclave there, blind faith in diplomacy is setting in motion a train of events that could lead directly to an Iranian bomb. The result of all this is not only a more dangerous Middle East but also an American homeland that is demonstrably less secure because of Obama’s continuing and uncomprehending failures.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/20...iran-al-qaeda/

March 4, 2014 Times of Israel

President Barack Obama is a “low-IQ US president,” whose threat to launch a military offensive should nuclear talks fail is an oft-cited punchline in the Islamic Republic, particularly among children, an Iranian general said on Tuesday.

“The low-IQ US president and his country’s Secretary of State John Kerry speak of the effectiveness of ‘the US options on the table’ on Iran while this phrase is mocked at and has become a joke among the Iranian nation, especially the children,” General Masoud Jazayeri said, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency.

Jazayeri was responding to the US president’s interview in Bloomberg on Sunday, in which Obama maintained that the Iranian leadership should take his “all options on the table” stance — including the warning of a potential military strike — seriously.

Read more: Iranian general: Obama's threats are 'the joke of the year' | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/iranian...#ixzz2wYOLgKro
Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook



there's a clear pattern developing

Yawn, more cut and paste. And an Israeli Neocon rag at that....

So the "low IQ Obama" is a joke among Iranian children. Are you freaking serious? You really took the time to quote that?

Lmao!
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http://youtu.be/MpraJYnbVtE
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Well that's big of you to admit. Obama says that using chemical weapons would be crossing a red line or something, they guy gasses his own people, and he's still in power? You don't think that emboldens would-be despots?

I'm not saying we should have gone to war. But you cannot say, on the international stage, that there's a line Assad better not cross, and then let him cross it without consequence.

Spence, if you warn your kids not to do something, and they do it anyway, how do you respond? By sticking your head in the sand and wishing it didn't happen?

Jeez...

"I think Russia was actually worried we'd take military action"

Putin stood by Assad through the whole thing. He stood by his ally. He was hardly afraid of what your hero was going to do. Putin through down the gauntlet, his buddy Assad faced no consequences, and Obama looked like an incompetent child in front of the entire world.

The result of the red line was Syria agreeing to get rid of their chemical weapons and to date a lot of that has occurred. It isn't perfect...but you can't say there wasn't a serious action.

-spence

Yup. It's a really good game. Enjoy.

the result of the "red line" in Syria was fodder for comedians world wide and Iranian Generals apparently, the weakness of this president and his policies has emboldened these various actors and they treat him and taunt him and play him as though he's a joke......

pretty sure the guy that crossed the red line is and will remain in power and I'm not sure the chemical weapons are all that important to him... more of a nightmare for us to deal with and dispose of rather than any benefit to him...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...A250SD20140306

I'd say Obama is being played pretty well.

-spence


fixed it

I was listening to a former NBA GM recently attempting to backtrack from some comments that he'd made regarding his team throwing games in order to get a better position at draft time...after some dodging he said "I've heard it described like this .....we weren't losing on purpose...rather, we were losing "with" purpose...and there's a difference and anyone that claims we were throwing games is simply wrong"....I immediately recognized this as Spence logic......like most things Obama, this is just another mess ..but his supporters continue to claim that the mess is being brilliantly managed and criticizing the "brilliant" mess management is wrong....strange times...

'Neocon' that's one of those code words used to try to deflect isn't it?

I included a New Republic rag article for balance to the "neocons" rag

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1...total-disaster

Bra #^&#^&#^&#^&ing oh
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Trust me, this is no game. I lived through the entire cold war and
Cuban Missile Crisis and wouldn't want anybody to be subjected to that again. :doh: