That civilian population as buffer thing is an overly simplistic way of looking at it, and doesn’t generally hold up to more detailed scrutiny. There are a number of factors at work ranging from population density to lack of safe places for civilians to poor intelligence and more. What is a factor in one location may not always be a factor in another.
I’m sorry to be the one to break the bad news to you, but this is what all conspiracy theorists say.
Obama believed he could put an end to war and torture and indefinite imprisonment without trial, but once he was seated in the White House he had access to intel that you and I and everybody else will not see for another few decades. The reality of the situation convinced him that targeted assassinations and secret prisons are in the nation’s best interests (but whether he’s right or wrong is another matter).
This is the simplest explanation.
I think at least the nature of troop deployment in Iraq has changed, if not also for Afghanistan.
:loco:
[quote]Obama believed he could put an end to war and torture and indefinite imprisonment without trial, but once he was seated in the White House he had access to intel that you and I and everybody else will not see for another few decades. The reality of the situation convinced him that targeted assassinations and secret prisons are in the nation’s best interests (but whether he’s right or wrong is another matter).
This is the simplest explanation.[/quote]
That is an explanation, but the simplest one I’m not so sure. Basically you’re just speculating on information you think he may have received when getting into office. It’s an interesting opinion, but something that could never be proven. It’s just a random personal assertion of yours.
I’m fine with people thinking that. I said there are TWO conclusions one could reach. One of them is that the President doesn’t have the power to illicit true changes, OR you think his publically stated opinions are just lies to get elected and then subsequently to stay in office but behind the scenes he really does like all the war mongering and wasted money on military spending.
If you believe the second one that’s fine, I personally don’t. I have never met the guy of course, but I do believe that his beliefs on foreign policy aren’t a whole lot different than my own. I think if he could he would change foreign policy DRAMATICALLY. He didn’t because he can’t. There’s a much bigger system in place than just the President and just because the man at the top changes every few years doesn’t mean the real “shot callers” behind the scenes aren’t still firmly in place.
I don’t think it would have mattered if Gore won instead of Bush, the US would still have gone into Iraq and Afghanistan. The military industrial complex is in charge and it won’t matter how good and just a President elect is, foreign policy won’t change. 
[quote=“BrentGolf”]
I’m fine with people thinking that. I said there are TWO conclusions one could reach. One of them is that the President doesn’t have the power to illicit true changes, OR you think his publically stated opinions are just lies to get elected and then subsequently to stay in office but behind the scenes he really does like all the war mongering and wasted money on military spending.
If you believe the second one that’s fine, I personally don’t. [/quote]
Fine, but then recognize that he’s lying now. What’s the difference?
[quote] I have never met the guy of course, but I do believe that his beliefs on foreign policy aren’t a whole lot different than my own. I think if he could he would change foreign policy DRAMATICALLY. He didn’t because he can’t. There’s a much bigger system in place than just the President and just because the man at the top changes every few years doesn’t mean the real “shot callers” behind the scenes aren’t still firmly in place.
I don’t think it would have mattered if Gore won instead of Bush, the US would still have gone into Iraq and Afghanistan. The military industrial complex is in charge and it won’t matter how good and just a President elect is, foreign policy won’t change. [/quote]
Of course he would have gone into Afghanistan. So would have Obama. Iraq? I highly doubt either Gore or Obama would have done so. Highly.
Brent, Obama got elected on the platform of “Change,” and he promised to change a lot of things. Pulling the military out was one thing. Changing stance on the environment was another. Rebooting the economy was a third. More racial and sexual equality in government was a fourth.
Now, there was a very real danger that if he tried to fix all these issues, he would fail at everything. So he focussed on social welfare reform, his healthcare, and turning the American economy around and reducing debt. But he still did something about all the other platform issues, like stopping torture, appointing blacks, hispanics and womens as supreme court justices, and promoting green technology such as PV panels.
I believe what he’s done for the environment to be woefully inadequate, and it’s true troops are still in the Middle East. But I don’t think he could have done everything and succeeded.
Also, I strongly disagreed with Bush going into Iraq. However, having bombed a country back to the stone age, I felt America had the responsibility of putting it back on it’s feet. There was also the case that if America pulled out, then the Taliban and Al Quaeda would step in and America would effectively be handing Irag and Afghanistan to them.
I wish I believed the same. I wish I could believe that if a good man is elected President foreign policy will change for the better. Sadly though, I believe what I’ve stated. Regardless of what Obama or any future President believes with regard to military decisions and foreign policy, the military industrial complex has their agenda already in place and there isn’t a damn thing the President can do to stop it. I truly hope to be proven wrong one day though. I’m not holding my breath though for that good man ( or next woman ) to come along and lead America down a better path…
I think a better question is why America left Afghanistan in the first place after teaming up with the Saudis in the 1980s and sending the Soviets packing,
If Gore had been elected, he would have spent his 8 years apologizing to the Muslims for the Crusades and for being forcibly removed from the Iberian peninsula.
I’m sorry to be the one to break the bad news to you, but this is what all conspiracy theorists say.
Obama believed he could put an end to war and torture and indefinite imprisonment without trial, but once he was seated in the White House he had access to intel that you and I and everybody else will not see for another few decades. The reality of the situation convinced him that targeted assassinations and secret prisons are in the nation’s best interests (but whether he’s right or wrong is another matter).
This is the simplest explanation.[/quote]
If that’s the same intel that compelled President Bush to invade Iraq before it was too late and convinced Colin Powell he had no choice but to make a fool of himself before the UN Security Council then that would explain everything. One would think though that, without revealing any details, Nobel Peace Prize winner President Pinocchio would offer such a simple explanation himself as to why there’s such an obvious gulf between his deeds and candidate Barack Obama’s impassioned sales pitch. No such simple explanation has been forthcoming though afaik so we’re left to merely speculate as to whether Barack Obama knows something now he didn’t have an inkling of before when he was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with a top secret security clearance or if he has, like so many before, merely sold his soul.
Did you know the British Royal family are actually shape changing giant lizards? I also heard that Jesus did not die on the cross, but actually went to live in France!
Only one of these is actually true.
Every good Kashmir knows that God took Jesus from the cross to the Vale of Kashmir, cause it’s the closest thing to Paradise on Earth (used to be, anyway.)
Brent,
It’s fairly typical for presidential candidates to rail against their predecessors policies and then pull a 180 and support those policies once in office. Richard Nixon spent alll of 1968 deriding the “socialist” Great Society Program and the next four years enthusiastically implementing the same. By 1972 he had abandoned all precepts of opposing Democratic social programs and was famously re-elected as a foreign policy hero who had reached out to China and the Soviet Union, embraced Keynesian economics, and avoided campaigning with his fellow Republicans. Millions of Americans split their tickets and voted for Democrats in the House and Senate and for Nixon as president.
Obama was the anti-war candidate who started his first term with a major surge of troops in Afghanistan. It’s a funny world.
That’s right. Presidents lie. That’s their job.
Meanwhile . . .
[quote]Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch Release Dual Reports on Drone Strikes
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are pleased to invite you to a joint release of two new reports on U.S. drone strikes and other air strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, October 22, 2013, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
The Amnesty International report, “‘Will I be next?’ U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan,” documents recent drone killings in northwest Pakistan that may amount to war crimes or extrajudicial executions, including the killing of a 68-year-old grandmother and 14-year-old boy. The report documents nine strikes that occurred in 2012 and 2013, based on rare access to the region.
The Human Rights Watch report, “Between a Drone and Al-Qaeda: The Civilian Cost of U.S. Targeted Killings in Yemen,” documents six strikes in Yemen from 2009 to 2013, two of which indiscriminately killed several dozen civilians in violation of the laws of war. The remaining strikes may have targeted individuals not subject to attack or caused disproportionate civilian deaths.[/quote]
What’s the alternative to drone strikes, Winston? It seems to me that conservatives are full of complaints, but short on alternatives. Every alternative I can think of is more bloody than drone strikes.
I’m not necessarily against drone strikes. I’m simply pointing out another of Obama’s many contradictions and the hypocrisy of many of his admirers.
I’m not a conservative but I have an answer: Not killing people.
Yup, drastic as it may seem, it appears that not killing people at all is far less bloody than drone strikes. It also generally results in less pissed off people who want revenge. We tried the ‘kill indiscriminately’ strategy, and the ‘kill slightly more discriminately’ strategy, let’s just give this whole ‘don’t kill people’ thing a shot and see how it goes.
Yes, I know, someone attacked the US, but my mother always taught me that two wrongs don’t make a right.
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The problem is that religious war brings out the worst in human beings. It deludes them into believing they have no choice but to strap on a bomb and detonate it in a crowd of people far from any battlefield, or they have no choice but to fire rockets off which they know will land on homes and neighborhoods, or they have no choice but to launch chemical weapons laden rockets on some neighborhood in order to maximize casualties among their adversaries and minimize them among themselves – or they have no choice but to act as judge, jury and executioner from fifty thousand feet in the air even though from that altitude even 68-year-old grandmothers and 14year-old boys look guilty. Unfortunately there is no antidote for such crimes against humanity, nothing one can say to anyone who has chosen the path of jihad which will make the slightest difference to them. They’re slaves to extremism and beyond all reason or redemption.
A nice rant, but you didn’t seem to answer the question. What’s the alternative to drone strikes? It’s easy to complain and blame Obama, but it’s a lot harder to provide workable solutions. So if you’re against drone strikes that’s a perfectly acceptable position to have. So what’s the alternative?
This has been stated repeatedly, but it seems that some people aren’t paying attention. Obama was a first term Senator when he criticized Bush’s policies. Then he became president himself and his point of view changed. You should be thrilled that Obama has effectively sealed Bush’s foreign policy doctrine as the permanent US strategy. Go wild.