Obama is full of it

Personal gain? He had a lot to loose politically in this circumstance. Maybe you missed all the people trashing him for going, saying that he was ignoring Afghanistan to go to Copenhagen. (nobody mentioning the fact that he also used the trip to meet with McChrystal in person) Maybe your just a little too into judging every minor action of someone who is under the scrutiny of the world every single day.Someone is full of it and I don't think it is Obama.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

First of all, he was reading the classified version of McCrystal's report the very moment it was available, on his vacation mind you. So your accusation that he let it sit on his desk is more defamation.Second, you have no idea how much time he has spent deciding about how we are going to handle the war in Afganistan. Just because he hasn't caved to an impetuous generals intentionally leaked request for more troops does not mean he is not working the issue.Third, most people who are not idiots or war-mongers know and are advising Obama correctly that there is no such thing as a military solution to the problem of Afganistan. It is a legitimatly difficult and perhaps even impossible problem which quite likely will only be made more difficult or impossible by naievly adding 40,000 more troops.Edited by Jazzns, : Spelling, probably some more I left behind but is it really worth it?

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Then perhaps you should choose your words more carefuly to avoid suggesting that the POTUS is derelict in his duty as CiC. You also have no idea what actions have been taken to address the issues within it because you have not read that report unless you happen to have a top secret DoD clearance and a need-to-know.The only thing you do know is that he hasn't give McChrystal his 40k more troops that he asked for in the unclasified version which there is a fundamental and legitimate debate going on right now that such an action is even the right thing to do. It is not impetuous to ask for more troops, it is impetuous to intentionally leak a report to create a media frenzy. He had already requested the troops in the classified version that Obama had already read. Generals are historically VERY bad a making policy decisions with few exceptions. He might know what he needs to defend against the current insurgency, but he is responding operationally to the situation. The solution, if there is one, is likely going to involve policy beyond which McCrystal has the authority to speak about. That makes a large assumption that we have even made "progress" at all. It is also quite possible that the vast majority of the insurgency, of which the majority is NOT al-qaida, is actually of our own creation to which adding more troops would only inflame the situation. A good chunk of the men who are fighting us are doing so because it is literally the only way they can feed their families.Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
...
Are we there yet?Get it?But seriously, people when they campaign always talk about EVERYTHING they would like to do. If he is a good president he will get done 25% of it which he is about on track to do.Gitmo - can't be done overnight but its in progress
Iraq & Afghanistan - seriously are you paying attention? He made his commitments and has stuck to them. He never promised Afganistan would be fixed and certainly not by now. Nobody could make that promise.
Health Care - will happen
(Misc Domestic stuff) - its only been freaking 10 months! And oh yea, last time I checked the President cannot legislate.Executive powers - I'll give you this one, very disappointing
Torture - I'll give you halfers on this one too, we haven't been a nation of laws since Nixon.Anyone who expected Obama to sweep in, kick the tires, and drive us out of every problem immediatly was not paying attention to the campaign or history.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

I can't see the video but based on your other statements, do you consider yourself libertarian?

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Which he plainly and REPEATEDLY said he would do during the campaign!Fuck! Do people READ anymore!?

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

If you read my other posts in this very same thread you will realize that I also disagree with Obama on Afganistan. You are acting like it is some kind of HUGE suprise that Obama is escalating the war when that is exactly what he said he would do.Your well-poisioning snarkiness about civilian deaths is irrelevant to the point I was making which is that nobody with half a brain who was paying attention to the campaign thought that Obama was getting us out of Afganistan. I agree with you! Just don't fucking misrepresent! If this was your main issue then I take it you wasted your vote on Bob Barr? Or Dennis Kusinich or Ron Paul?

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

External frustrations made me snap. Sorry. I think your suffering from the same "are we there yet?" mentality as RR. I happen to be of the OPINION that escalation will not work. But I also KNOW for a FACT that applying any kind of alternate strategy for 10 months to a problem that is 8 years in the making is not going to produce the results that we want. I am absolutly NOT giving Obama the beneift of the doubt but I certainly see no reason for this out right bitchiness about how everything is not fixed yet.As much as I personally support withdraw from Afganistan, I also recognize that such a thing would also be considered a failure. Its just a "better" failure IMO than staying in. You really believe that Obama supports killing civilians? And please don't give me a moralizing answer about how he must support killing civilians since he is keeping us in Afganistan. I am trying to make this not-as-snarky so making that assumption may be crossing a line but I would like to head this point off at the pass. Reality is not so black and white and would not even be so for even the MOST anti-war president you could have imagined winning last election in your wildest dreams.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

You just seem to speak about "government" as if we lived in a dictatorship. I'll be the last person to deny the problems we have in this nation but it is still MORE of a reflection of the will of the people than most of the nations on earth.The government IS US! "We" are the government. "We" just also happen to be stupid as sin.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

You are totally misrepresenting my reply to you. I never made the claim that Obama was out to fix the problems that Afghanistan has had for the past century. I was obviously talking about our most recent involvement and the policy thereof.If you look back to my original reply to both you and RR I was complaining about how there is this mentality that just because everything is not fixed yet that Obama is "full of it" and subsequently from you claiming that he supports the killing of civilians which is total bullshit hyperbole. Obama made the promise in his campaign that he was going to restore focus to Afghanistan, he said he was going to fight Al Quada and the Taliban and to act all surprised and shocked when in fact he is working through on that talk is simply dishonest.Do I think we need to hold his feet to the fire? Yes absolutely. I am not an Obama drone. I consider myself both an idealist AND a realist.Obama will have his term(s) and get some things done that I like and some things done that I don't like. I believe we will be better off with the result with him as POTUS than the viable alternatives that we had or are even going to have.

What evidence do you have that Obama is against the US signing the land mine treaty? And for what reasons if they do exist is he against it?Israel policy is also an area you will not find me in much agreement with Obama on but it is a FAR cry to go from that to saying that Obama endorses the killing of civilians.I started off this conversation a little rough and admitted that my tone was too coarse. Are you willing to admit you very obvious hyperbole?

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Yes you are in fact still misrepresenting me becuase my point was that nobody made the promise to solve all of Afganistan's problems. Past, centry, all of history, whatever. America's interest in Afganistan IS IN FACT a counter terrorism interest regardless if we stay or go. I happen to believe that we should be spending > 90% of the effort we are putting in now on economic development but I am not going to throw Obama under the bus for every single thing I disagree with him about.(As an aside, I have not heard anybody suggest what I think would be a good idea which is to legalize the poppy farms for legitimate purposes. I think that would be a really good place start.) That is STILL not what I was talking about. I was criticizing that many people are complaining that it "isn't fixed yet!" Even if I don't agree with the current plan or even its prospects for success, I don't think it is honest to proclaim that Obama has not followed through with what he claimed he would do. Thats all. Period.You and I will apparrently continue to argumentativly agree with each other about our opinion that something different SHOULD be done. IMO, Obama is in the same position as LBJ. He is a decent man with the right ideas for America bogged down in a war that I don't believe he inherantly wants to be fighting. I can't give you more than my opinion on that. I have in fact met the man for what that is worth which I realize might not be much so don't berate me on it. No disagreements here. I would only like to add that WE condition them to do that. There is a very good reason that Kusinich and Nader did not win, even enough to make the claim that there is support for an agressive peace canidate. The only person who came close was Ron Paul and his basis for de-escalation was on primitive isolationist grounds. As much as we can prove that American's are in fact pro-peace, they demonstrably will not vote for a pro-peace canidate. It is a flaw in Obama that I will readily admit but I don't have the illusion that the progressive canidates that I support have to be perfect, nor does the rest of the progressive movement or else we would be talking about President John McCains failures in Afganistan instead.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Very much so for the same reason I don't believe that Rosevelt or Eisenhower approved of it despite the fact that it was explicitly part of our war strategy in WWII.A little bit out of order in my reply... Is basically an admission that you are using hyperbole. It is your projection and therefore your opinion. When you can produce a statment or policy position of Obama's declaring his opposition to the land mine treaty then I will retract and stand right next to you in your outrage.But I STILL would not proclaim that a man agrees with killing innocents. I don't believe that Bush agreed with killing innocents. It is a slanderous charge that only serves to diminish the very legitimate arguments you have for why US war policy needs to change.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

I'll get to some more replies tomorrow but I am curious as to your thoughts about the pro-peace canidacy argument that I made.Don't think for a minute that I am trying to excuse anyone Obama or otherwise, but I wonder if there is any nuance whatsoever to your opinion taking into account what I said there. This is regarding both Afganistan policy and the war enterprise/treaty discussion.Obama is not the end-all-be-all, but I believe he is a step in the right direction. We have a lot of things to fix and democracy is an inherantly flawed process in which to do it. It just happens to be the best process that we have.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

No. I think also made it pretty clear that the solution to Afganistan is more than a military one. There is a security issue which he is taking the conventional approach to which is what I think is wrong, but I think he knows that you can't solve the crisis in Afganistan without at the very least solving the economic depression that they are in. What was the last figure, they are now the 3rd poorest country in the world or something? If all that he does is implement a military solution then I agree it will fail. But I think that if he also gets together an infastructure and economic program in tandem he can probably have some level of "success". The problem I see is that if he does what is practical which is negotiate with the Taliban to bring them back partially into government and to leverage them against al-quaida, he won't survive politically to see that much better solution through. The right solution is a non-starter unless you consider it better that he loose in 2012 against another right-winger who you KNOW will take the wrong approach for sure. Which is fine, I never got into this thread to say that there are not valid criticisms of Obama. I just don't think we can call him a failure after not even 1/4 of his term, even on Afganistan. Bush was such a disaster for the world I don't think there exists a person would could serve as president right now who would be able to fix all things in even 2 terms of office. Lets do the best we can with what we got. Stay on his tail, keep up the pressure, and take some steps forward instead of the alternative which would be sure fire steps backward.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson