Obama blames rise of ISIS on Bush's policy of not "aiming before we shoot"

[Jim in CT]

There are not words in our language to describe the contempt I have for Obama. Nothing is ever, ever his fault. And he always looks to blame someone else, preferably someone like Bush, who Obama knows won't fire back.

If Bush didn't invade Iraq, there might not be an ISIS, since ISIS is a derivative of "Al Queda in Iraq", which didn't exist before the invasion.

Here is what Obama fails to mention. When Obama took office, thanks to the Surge, AL Queda in Iraq was defeated. We have the intercepts of the few remaining leaders of Al Queda in Iraq telling other groups to stop sending fighters, that it was lost in Iraq, that we had won. Obama was urged by many to secure a Status Of Forces agreement with Iraq to leave behind a peacekeeping force so that we didn't give back what we sacrificed so dearly to achieve. Obama was warned that if we left to early, in the vacuum that was left, a terrible force could fill that void.

Obama the Wise ignored all that advice He also ignored the early warnings of ISIS, calling them the JV.

He inherited a stable Iraq. He did nothing to stop the rise of ISIS. Not only does he want no part in stopping them (he's more than happy to leave that mess for his successor), God knows he isn't going to take responsibility for yet another complete failure on his watch.

The Obama stimulus was going to keep unemployment below 8 percent, and create all these shovel ready jobs.

Obama said the days of gas under $2.50 a gallon were gone forever.

Obama makes fun of Romney for suggesting that Putin was a threat (the 1980s called, they want their foreign policy back, haw haw haw)

Obamacare was going to save the average family $2500 a year.

If you like your doctor/plan, you can keep it.

"I don't know what happened at Harvard, but it's fair to say the police acted stupidly". That's the way to bring the country together.

He told ISIS exactly when we were leaving Iraq, they waited, and then started killing and raping. He brushed them off as the JV. And it's all Bush's fault.

That's a hell of a list of failures.

Jerk.

How long, O Lord?

[spence]

A nice summary of the things you've gotten wrong over the years.
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[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

A nice summary of the things you've gotten wrong over the years.
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If you could, specifically, correct me...I could benefit from your superior knowledge of events during Obama's tenure.

Easy to insult me Spence. A bit harder to point out the specific inaccuracies in my list, I think...

Everything good that happens, he takes credit for. Like the rooster taking credit for the sunrise. Everything bad that happens, is someone else's doing.

[Nebe]

Do you disagree with the fact that if we didn't invade Iraq, that Isis wouldn't exist?
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[buckman]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Do you disagree with the fact that if we didn't invade Iraq, that Isis wouldn't exist?
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Three years ago ISIS didn't even exist . They rose to power in Syria because the world , including the United States sat by and watched the genocide that was going on there. They then moved into a void in Iraq that was left when the United States troops pulled out.
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[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Do you disagree with the fact that if we didn't invade Iraq, that Isis wouldn't exist?
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Maybe you didn't read my post, because here's what I posted...

"If Bush didn't invade Iraq, there might not be an ISIS, since ISIS is a derivative of "Al Queda in Iraq", which didn't exist before the invasion."

The fact is, we invaded. Obama sought the office of POTUS, and a big part o fthat job is managing foreign policy in the Middle East. What did Iraq look like when Obama took office? It was stable and promising. Al Queda in Iraq was absolutely decimated, thanks to the Surge (which Obama opposed, and refused to admit was a success until he had no choice). The genesis if ISIS happened entirely on his watch.

If Obama wants to say he inherited a lousy economy (and take credit for the improvement since his inauguration), then using that same logic, we must also admit he inherited a stable Iraq, and deserves some blame for how terribly that has deteriorated on his watch. He cannot have it both ways. He can't take credit for all the improvements and dodge guilt for all the thing sthat got worse.

He's an unbelievable egomaniac, and he's mind-boggingly unfit for the job he's in. .

[justplugit]

Originally Posted by buckman

They then moved into a void in Iraq that was left when the United States troops pulled out.
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Right on, if O HAD aimed and fired at the time Isis was coming into Iraq from Syria during the void, he would have prevented their infiltration and not have given us the problems we have today.

[Nebe]

Obama ran on the premise that he promised to get our troops out of the mess that bush got us into. Seems like he should be able to take credit for that, no? Isis will be waswas in a couple of years.... Watch
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[buckman]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Obama ran on the premise that he promised to get our troops out of the mess that bush got us into. Seems like he should be able to take credit for that, no? Isis will be waswas in a couple of years.... Watch
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Actually Bush signed the orders to get the troops out.
I think you're wrong but I hope you're right about Isis
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[Nebe]

Time will tell.
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[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Obama ran on the premise that he promised to get our troops out of the mess that bush got us into. Seems like he should be able to take credit for that, no? Isis will be waswas in a couple of years.... Watch
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Yes, he can take credit for getting us completely out of Iraq. If he gets credit for the benefits involved with pulling us completely out of Iraq (fewer Americans killed, less money spent, etc), does he therefore not deserve responsibility for the negative consequences of pulling us completely out of Iraq, such as the birth of ISIS? Again, you (like he himself) give him credit for all th egood things, but ignore the bad things. Unbelievable.

Nebe, I have news for you. We are going back into Iraq in a big way. Not before this idiot is out of office, but sometime after. And every single drop of blood that is spilled in the campaign to rid the world of ISIS, is on his hands, because there was no ability for ISIS to take root in Iraq when Obama took office. They were decimated. Obama created the vaccuum that allowed them to get going, and then he completely blew the analysis of their potential threat when he called them the JV and did nothing to stop them.

When Obama took office, Iraq was stable, and had free, successful elections, in which the candidates representing the most extreme factoins of Islam were defeated. That's what he inherited. Now it's a disaster.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Isis will be waswas in a couple of years.... Watch
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Boy I'd love to know what you're basing that on, and how you think that comes about without huge numbers of American boots back on the ground.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by buckman

Actually Bush signed the orders to get the troops out.
I think you're wrong but I hope you're right about Isis
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Yes, Bush originally came up with the timetable for withdrawal that Obama ultimately followed. But the assumption was that at the time, if it was necessary, we would sign another status of forces agreement to leave behind a residual peacekeeping force. When the time came, many military advisors warned Obama about the dangers that were involved with leaving the void that was created by our withdrawal, but being the military expert he is, he did what he wanted.

[Nebe]

Don't you guys call that "being a maverick"?
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[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Obama ran on the premise that he promised to get our troops out of the mess that bush got us into. Seems like he should be able to take credit for that, no? Isis will be waswas in a couple of years.... Watch
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

First, even though I have rebutted attacks on Bush and his policies previously, I did so not to support Bush, but to demonstrate that the attacks on him were not as absolutely true and accurate as they were so confidently stated. I was, personally, never so confident neither about the invasion of Afghanistan nor of Iraq. I understood the stated and unstated rationale for both, and whatever "defending" I did for them was purely on those rationales versus the largely political and slanted attacks on Bush. My personal preference, from the start, was to forthrightly demand that the Taliban government give us Bin Laden, or we would reduce them to rubble.

That said, even realizing, given the world we live in, that could not happen, let me amend what you said. I don't recall exactly how Obama's promise was phrased regarding the troops, but what he got them out of (almost), was Iraq, not the mess Bush got us into. The "mess" was the war. Wars are always messy. The aftermath of the war was a reversion to some order, one in which there was "hope" (one of Obama's favorite words) for the citizens to lead a freer life. But that was contingent on our continued military presence there. What Obama did was to get the troops needed for that to happen out of Iraq. What he did was squash the possibility of the "hope."

What that also did was to squander the lives, limbs, and treasure spent on securing the hope. Even if we grant that we should not have gone there in the first place, and that is not satisfactorily granted by all, what's done is done. And it is arguably unreasonable to throw out whatever good came of it, just to belittle the premise for it--to waste the loss of life in order to fulfill a political promise.

Obama "should be able to take credit for that".

As far as ISIS becoming a "waswas" in a couple of years, that, hopefully, will be true. All things, good or bad, come to an end. In the meantime, ISIS has been a setback to the "hope" for Iraq. And that hope is even further being diminished by the rise of Iran's influence there. And we seem to be going in the direction of letting Iran have its way. And, in my opinion, Iran, and, Turkey and, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinians, and other Middle East countries aren't going to immediately destroy ISIS, but let it continue a little while to eradicate Christian influence there. THEN, that being done, the Middle Eastern powers will make ISIS a "waswas."

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Don't you guys call that "being a maverick"?
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What Obama did is not cale\led "being a maverick", it's called "being an idiot who completely ignores the empirical evidence that is staring him in the face."

Iraq was stable, though the stability was still fresh and fragile, when Obama took office. Every single rational person would agree that the sole reason for the new-found stability was the overwhelming military presence provided by the Surge. Iraq qas a godawful mess before the surge.

I didn't hear too many military advisors tell Obama that there was little/no downside to withdrawing the way we did. But he is motivated by radical left-wing ideology, not facts and empirical evidence.

[spence]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

If you could, specifically, correct me...I could benefit from your superior knowledge of events during Obama's tenure.

Easy to insult me Spence. A bit harder to point out the specific inaccuracies in my list, I think...

Use the search, it's all there.
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[Sea Dangles]

He won't
All he hears are the voices in his head
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[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Sea Dangles

He won't
All he hears are the voices in his head
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Well, I asked Spence to point out my specific errors, and he didn't, because he couldn't. So I'll ask you to do the same?

[buckman]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Well, I asked Spence to point out my specific errors, and he didn't, because he couldn't. So I'll ask you to do the same?

He won't 😊
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[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by buckman

He won't ��
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Because he can't, either. I don't believe the failures I listed in my first post, are subject to interpretation. Obama was way off on his estiated benefit of the stimulus, he was way off on his estimate of savings that Obamacare would provide, he was way off when he said we could keep our plan/doctor, he was way off when he concluded that there was no reason to leeave behind a peacekeeping force in Iraq, and he was way off when he dismissed ISIS as the JV, and he was way off when he insulted Romney for speculating that Putin represented a challenge to world peace.

Spence,Dangles, please correct any specific errors I made?

[Sea Dangles]

All I said is you won't use the search. As in a previous discussion when you also insisted there was only one side of the coin. You are extremely black and white which is why you have one dimensional knowledge. This has obviously limited your ability to think but you seem fine with that so good luck sport.
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[detbuch]

I don't want to get in the middle of, or even take sides in, a personal pissing match. But why is it assumed that Jim did not "use the search"?

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Sea Dangles

All I said is you won't use the search. As in a previous discussion when you also insisted there was only one side of the coin. You are extremely black and white which is why you have one dimensional knowledge. This has obviously limited your ability to think but you seem fine with that so good luck sport.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I'm pretty certain you made references to my hearing voices as well, but I guess I'm making that up too.

Sea Dangles, do you disagree that Obama inherited a stable Iraq, thanks to the Surge? Do you disagree that Obama claimed the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8% or that he said we could keep our doctors/plans, or that he said the average family would save $2500 a year thanks to Obamacare?

Those things all happened...

[buckman]

Originally Posted by Sea Dangles

All I said is you won't use the search. As in a previous discussion when you also insisted there was only one side of the coin. You are extremely black and white which is why you have one dimensional knowledge. This has obviously limited your ability to think but you seem fine with that so good luck sport.
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I have to disagree. I think Jim is more than fair in his assessments. He has criticized a right on many occasions.
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[Sea Dangles]

Two peas in a pod
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[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

But why is it assumed that Jim did not "use the search"?

Because the questions he asks have been answered sufficiently multiple times in this forum yet he just keeps asking and asking.

It's like the same Benghazi questions, answered multiple times by several investigations, being asked again, again and again.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by spence

Because the questions he asks have been answered sufficiently multiple times in this forum yet he just keeps asking and asking.

It's like the same Benghazi questions, answered multiple times by several investigations, being asked again, again and again.

I think he just likes hearing you repeat the same lies and distortions over and over...I thought he was just a glutton for punishment but maybe he's just clever

[Sea Dangles]

Originally Posted by detbuch

I don't want to get in the middle of, or even take sides in, a personal pissing match. But why is it assumed that Jim did not "use the search"?

Because, as is the case in most instances,a simple search will provide evidence of more than one opinion. It doesn't necessarily demonstrate a need to agree with a differing opinion,and certainly two people can read the same story and come to different interpretations. Kind of like the bible. An open mind is necessary to digest any such text.
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[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Sea Dangles

Because, as is the case in most instances,a simple search will provide evidence of more than one opinion. It doesn't necessarily demonstrate a need to agree with a differing opinion,and certainly two people can read the same story and come to different interpretations. Kind of like the bible. An open mind is necessary to digest any such text.
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The substance of what you say ("It doesn't necessarily demonstrate a need to agree with a differing opinion,") is what provokes my question. Even if the search provides differing opinions, it doesn't mean that someone who has made the search must remain in a quandary. Nor that one, after making the search, cannot have strong opinions. Some of the most biased people have studied a vast array of opinions. What's the point of making the search if not to form an opinion? That Jim is so assertive and explicit in his opinion does not mean he has not considered other opinions.

Nor does it mean that those who constantly qualify their opinions with vague, noncommittal, contingencies such as "perhaps, possibly, seems" or other hedging ambiguities have made "the search."

I don't think many of us, if any, have made an exhaustive, even a large, "search." And when Spence said "Because the questions he asks have been answered sufficiently multiple times in this forum yet he just keeps asking and asking" it doesn't mean that Spence has "used the search."

There may be a lot of searching that Spence hasn't done. He doesn't cite a lot of the sources which disagree with him. And Jim may be using sources that Spence has not "searched." It is obvious that Jim has searched sources that belie Spence's assertion that his questions have been answered "sufficiently". Or, as you say, he only hears voices in his head. And, it may be, that both Jim and Spence suffer the same malady of insufficient "search_--as you say, two peas in a pod. Though, I don't think
Spence would want to be in that pod. And, I think, Jim would be willing to survive in it. I think ScottW had a good retort.