Posted on 09/08/2015 2:47:35 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
This blistering editorial at the Washington Post carries the headline, “Obama’s Syria Achievement,” which is not complimentary, to say the least. Fred Hiatt, the editor of the editorial page, excoriates Barack Obama not just for the humanitarian disaster — genocides, really — in Syria, but for fundamentally transforming America into a defeatist nation. We used to care when genocides occurred, Hiatt argues, sometimes inconsistently and with unintended consequences for our interventions. But Obama offered the nation a new course — despair:
Obama — who ran for president on the promise of restoring the United States’ moral stature — has constantly reassured Americans that doing nothing is the smart and moral policy. He has argued, at times, that there was nothing the United States could do, belittling the Syrian opposition as “former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth.”
He has argued that we would only make things worse — “I am more mindful probably than most,” he told the New Republic in 2013, “of not only our incredible strengths and capabilities, but also our limitations.”
He has implied that because we can’t solve every problem, maybe we shouldn’t solve any. “How do I weigh tens of thousands who’ve been killed in Syria versus the tens of thousands who are currently being killed in the Congo?” he asked (though at the time thousands were not being killed in Congo). …
Most critically, inaction was sold not as a necessary evil but as a notable achievement: The United States at last was leading with the head, not the heart, and with modesty, not arrogance.
In other words, Obama made Americans feel good about standing aside and watching genocides take place. Glenn Reynolds argues that this is entirely too kind — and that inaction in one sphere has been met with destabilizing action elsewhere in a perfect storm of incompetence:
And even this is too kind. The “red line” fiasco was a signal that nobody needed to pay attention to U.S. views. The Iraq withdrawal was, in fact, predicted to be a disaster, and took place against the advice of the generals. And the Libya disaster was a war-of-choice, in violation of a disarmament deal we’d already made with Khaddafy.
The war of choice on Libya is an interesting contrast to Hiatt’s indictment, and poses an uncomfortable question about Obama’s strategy, to the extent he has one. Obama balked at intervening in Syria against Bashar al-Assad, one of the main allies for the Iranian mullahs in the region. He had no trouble ordering military strikes on Qaddafi despite the agreement we had reached on nuclear disarmament. In that case, the US and NATO warned that Qaddafi was about to attack a civilian population, but subsequent events demonstrate that Benghazi was no quiet hamlet of peaceful dissent; it was a hub for the terror networks that aligned with al-Qaeda then, and align with ISIS now.
In contrast, Assad had already begun massacring his own people, and even used chemical weapons to do so. Yet Obama hesitated so long to respond to it, and offered such a half-baked military action, that Congress balked at the plans and forced him to stand down. Both countries are now failed states where terror networks flourish. We might have saved Libya by the inaction that Obama preaches elsewhere, and we could have prevented the rise of ISIS had we stayed engaged in Iraq.
Why was Obama so quick to attack a dictator dealing with the West, and so quick to disparage intervention against a dictator aligned with Iran? Was Obama that desperate to get a nuclear deal with Tehran that he and his team — which includes Samantha Power and Susan Rice — were willing to tolerate genocides in order to get it? If so, tremendous amounts of blood and treasure have been spilled for a 15-year delay at best on an Iranian nuclear weapon. That’s one hell of an achievement, all right.
B
I categorically refuse to be part of your 'us' or your 'shame.' If you were on my property right now, I would chase you off as fast as I would chase off a communist, and probably hit you with a stick more times in the process - because anyone on this site sincerely - should know better.
I've stopped myself numerous times in the past from clicking 'post' after starting a similar response to similar calls for 'us' to be 'ashamed.' Speak for yourself.
Let me state as an individual human created by God and dropped on this orb, self evidently free: DO NOT EVER include me in your personal 'we' or 'us,' especially when expressing your personal and irrational shame and self-negativity.
It is philosophically and morally more sickening than the actions of those who actually are the agents of what's going on today in this country. I can be responsible (able to respond) to the patently stupid and evil choices of those around me, but I am not accountable for their sins and will never take on the shame due them, as you seem to, nor spread it by passive inference to those listening to me or reading me by the use of the collective 'we/us'
I don't mean to be harsh, maybe reflect if you've been partially hypnotized by the collective evil scum we're exposed to every day in the media and the world ("The World" as Jesus called it") around us: to call oneself a free man and individual and simultaneously accept shame for the actions of others, or your inability to prevent them from taking those actions, is as much a denial of the sanctity of individual freedom, will and agency as it is to take it away from a man by jailing him for nothing, or taxing him to death for the sin of being more successful.
You can have your shame, I won't get near it, ever.
I am not condemning the voluntary cooperation of free clear thinking and informed individuals when I say the word 'we' is the most evil word in the English language and the most evil word in the history of mankind.
Please take that as extreme gut level moral outrage at an idea and not at you personally. I know we are all on the same side here.
And that is the truth
Claiming that the rot that destroys this country has nothing to do with you is much like the Japanese people who refuse to accept any of the responsibility for what their country did in World War II. Please keep you sanctimony to yourself and you may be quite certain that I will never put a step on your property. The only people who will do that are the ones who haul you off to the reeducation camp.
I don’t blame you because IO feel the same way
Yes, he does. Yet, it’s hard to pin the tail on the donkey because, “It depends on what the definition of ISIS”. Maybe Johnny McInsane can shed some light on the situation…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLEdpDpoTTA
If you can find the line where I claimed that, then I'll address it, but you won't.
"... responsibility"
I addressed that word specifically, and in relation to it's difference vs 'accountability.'
If you had a cold, or the flu, I would fight your cold, or flu, but that doesn't mean I would be fighting you. I think you have 'we' flu, that's all.
Obama practically bleeds "We" (you by inference) "should be ashamed." It's the unspoken mantra, it's the most destructive force in a host of destructive forces.
I don't think you should be ashamed. Why not just be disgusted or hurt? And then, if you choose, you can exercise 'responsibility.' There is no need for shame in that equation unless you are doing less than your heart/God demands of you -> but that is a question for you to answer for yourself, not to answer for others.
The question isn't whether it sounds sanctimonious. The question is whether it is correct.
Don’t care to argue, nice to know you.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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The Libyan, Iraqi and Iranian disasters too. Could add others.
"Death to America!"
Well, Obama got 'the deal'... no price was too high. And the deal's a dud...
Aww, why don’t we cooperate with him and do whatever he says, and that way he can own an Israeli disaster, too.
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