Obama has Failed at Everything

Gkhan · July 4, 2014, 11:04pm

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

Bush told Saddam that he would invade if weapon expectors were not allowed access to sites. They were not…[/quote]

Then by pat’s logic and yours this amounts to a failure of foreign policy.[/quote]

No, because Bush made good on his threat. Obama did not.[/quote]

The goal? Get Syria to relinquish its chemical weapons. The method? Threat of air strikes. The outcome? Syria relinquishes its chemical weapons. The details are worth discussing. What’s not worth discussing are my first six sentences. You can try to twist a hundred which ways but it’s an exercise in futility. And it’s not as if there aren’t real foreign policy fuck ups of Obama to discuss.[/quote]

What’s the point if he just weaponizes other chemicals and uses them?[/quote]

What is the point of the Chemical Weapons Convention? What is the point in taking 1000 tons of Sarin and Mustard gas out of a failing state that is overrun by Islamic terrorists? You need somebody to explain these things to you?

[/quote]

I get your position. There is nothing wrong with it. There is so much wrong with the situation in Syria that if we can’t come to an understanding over something so simple as this, what’s the point of delving into anything further?

smh_23 · July 4, 2014, 11:43pm

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

It’s useless to continue. They say they answered my questions, yet when I ask them a direct question they ignore it and attack grammatical errors.
[/quote]

My last exchange with you ended with this:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Only difference is Assad used chemical weapons which, according to Obama’s first calculus formula, should have been grounds for an attack.

So it makes no difference to you whether Assad used the weapons or not? Heeded Obama’s threat or not? The means doesn’t matter, only the ends? I bet Assad’s kicking himself for not using more chemical weapons before eventually surrendering them.
[/quote]

I have posted Obama’s precise words a couple of times over the last few pages. If you care to reference them, you will notice that they contain no specific promise of any attack. They reference a “red line” and promise a “change [in] calculus.” On the technical end of things (which doesn’t really matter much one way or another), there are a variety of possibilities that can be entailed by a “change [in] calculus,” and among them is most certainly the dispossession of a chemical weapons arsenal under the direct threat of force. It is a punishment, and it contains within it the unanimous acknowledgement that the threat-maker is willing to use force.

Put more simply, the deal materialized in response to U.S. preparations to attack. It is direct evidence that both Russia and Syria believed that Obama was moving to launch a punitive military strike–that the threat was working its way through the system.

Much more important is what happened next. The taking of the deal was the rational choice given those circumstances at that point in time. It represented a concrete victory and the removal of a real threat to international stability, at no U.S. cost. I have been hammering away about rational decision-making and cost-benefit ratios because they are by far the best way to judge these things. The alternative to the deal–to refuse the surrender of the stockpile and go ahead with the punitive airstrikes–was an irrational choice. It would have accomplished next to nothing relative to its alternative, it would have entailed substantially more risk, and it would have meant the conscious decision to say “no thanks” to an offer that would dispossess a Jihadist haven of 1000 tons of nerve and blister agents.

It is foolish, then, to build a simplistic-to-the-point-of-perfidy timeline that goes like this: “Obama said don’t, they did, and then Obama didn’t strike.” It ignores the sequence of decisions that actually constitutes international diplomacy, and it tacitly advocates for a ludicrously irrational alternative series of events wherein the lesser–and I mean really the lesser–of two mutually exclusive options would have been elected and executed, to measurable detriment to American security interests.

Now, do I care that Assad used the weapons, on a personal level? Of course. I am not some kind of monster. But, as I’ve said a few times throughout this thread, foreign affairs can be a callous proposition. American military and intelligence officials are not losing sleep over dead Syrian civilians. But you can bet that they do a lot of thinking about chemical weapons arsenals in failing states.

Edited[/quote]

Your questions, my answers. And then you did not respond to that post.

Before that, I wrote ~4,000 words’ worth of pure, unaddressed argument. Which was ignored in favor of re-posting the points that occasioned the 5,000 words in the first place. None of this “defies logic.” None of this “makes no sense.” You are certainly intelligent enough to understand the points that are being offered to you. None of this is written in a foreign language.

smh_23 · July 4, 2014, 11:35pm

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

I get your position. There is nothing wrong with it. There is so much wrong with the situation in Syria that if we can’t come to an understanding over something so simple as this, what’s the point of delving into anything further?[/quote]

I’m certainly not going any further after all this. No worries there.

But I do have a question: If you get my position and there is nothing wrong with it, then how is it that we haven’t come to an understanding?

Bismark · July 4, 2014, 11:58pm

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Pat is a good poster[/quote]

I think that if I tried my hand at the intellectual dishonesty that was so often and so plainly offered by Pat over the course of this thread, I would be swarmed by jagged teeth and torn to gory pieces. It is not rare at all that two people disagree here, and it is not rare that their debate turns hot or stern–but real dishonesty is actually relatively uncommon, particularly among people who come here often.[/quote]

Accusing me of dishonesty indicates to me you don’t have a point. It’s a flat lie. You just accuse me of dishonesty when the facts aren’t on your side.[/quote]

You’ve been shifting the goal posts of this discussion as you went from sheer ignorance of its subject to a grossly misinformed position.[/quote]

Nice, resorting to flowery insults when you won’t even address a couple of simple questions. What? Afraid that I might point out the absurdity of your position?
[/quote]

Not insults, but observations of Pat’s starting and current positions in this discussion as someone who actually has a basic understanding of the discipline.

Restate your questions explicitly and I will answer them as fully as I am able, as I would rather not wade through the bewildering posts you have made in this thread.

Gkhan · July 5, 2014, 3:15am

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

It’s useless to continue. They say they answered my questions, yet when I ask them a direct question they ignore it and attack grammatical errors.
[/quote]

My last exchange with you ended with this:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Only difference is Assad used chemical weapons which, according to Obama’s first calculus formula, should have been grounds for an attack.

So it makes no difference to you whether Assad used the weapons or not? Heeded Obama’s threat or not? The means doesn’t matter, only the ends? I bet Assad’s kicking himself for not using more chemical weapons before eventually surrendering them.
[/quote]

I have posted Obama’s precise words a couple of times over the last few pages. If you care to reference them, you will notice that they contain no specific promise of any attack. They reference a “red line” and promise a “change [in] calculus.” On the technical end of things (which doesn’t really matter much one way or another), there are a variety of possibilities that can be entailed by a “change [in] calculus,” and among them is most certainly the dispossession of a chemical weapons arsenal under the direct threat of force. It is a punishment, and it contains within it the unanimous acknowledgement that the threat-maker is willing to use force.

Put more simply, the deal materialized in response to U.S. preparations to attack. It is direct evidence that both Russia and Syria believed that Obama was moving to launch a punitive military strike–that the threat was working its way through the system.

Much more important is what happened next. The taking of the deal was the rational choice given those circumstances at that point in time. It represented a concrete victory and the removal of a real threat to international stability, at no U.S. cost. I have been hammering away about rational decision-making and cost-benefit ratios because they are by far the best way to judge these things. The alternative to the deal–to refuse the surrender of the stockpile and go ahead with the punitive airstrikes–was an irrational choice. It would have accomplished next to nothing relative to its alternative, it would have entailed substantially more risk, and it would have meant the conscious decision to say “no thanks” to an offer that would dispossess a Jihadist haven of 1000 tons of nerve and blister agents.

It is foolish, then, to build a simplistic-to-the-point-of-perfidy timeline that goes like this: “Obama said don’t, they did, and then Obama didn’t strike.” It ignores the sequence of decisions that actually constitutes international diplomacy, and it tacitly advocates for a ludicrously irrational alternative series of events wherein the lesser–and I mean really the lesser–of two mutually exclusive options would have been elected and executed, to measurable detriment to American security interests.

Now, do I care that Assad used the weapons, on a personal level? Of course. I am not some kind of monster. But, as I’ve said a few times throughout this thread, foreign affairs can be a callous proposition. American military and intelligence officials are not losing sleep over dead Syrian civilians. But you can bet that they do a lot of thinking about chemical weapons arsenals in failing states.

Edited[/quote]

Your questions, my answers. And then you did not respond to that post.

Before that, I wrote ~4,000 words’ worth of pure, unaddressed argument. Which was ignored in favor of re-posting the points that occasioned the 5,000 words in the first place. None of this “defies logic.” None of this “makes no sense.” You are certainly intelligent enough to understand the points that are being offered to you. None of this is written in a foreign language.[/quote]

First off, I wasn’t talking about you.

Second I said I agree with your position. Yes, it is good chemical weapons have been removed from a war torn state that can be over run by terrorists. Yes, I agree, great, fantastic.

Third, I asked you a question, you answered it and I thanked you, but there were many other questions I had that were left unanswered and none of them were addressed to you.

But what I want to know is this: Does the fact that Obama issued a threat and Assad ignored it and used chemical weapons make Obama look weak. If Obama was perceived as strong, Assad would not have used the weapons? Right or wrong? That is the hurtle that is difficult to get over.

Next question: Do you think it was stupid for Obama to threaten Syria with a Red Line if it was not going to be backed up? Or do you think if the chemical weapons were NOT removed, drones and bombers would be in the skies over Syria as we speak, because I do not believe Obama has the balls to make this call and piss off both the Russians and Hezbollah. What are your thoughts on this?

Gkhan · July 5, 2014, 3:23am

My questions, good lord, again.?

Ok Bis. You said that chemical weapons are not a weapon of mass destruction. Reason was they do not cause enough deaths or mass destruction. I want to know, using the same logic, how nuclear weapons could be considered weapons of mass destruction when in fact conventional firebombing could cause more deaths and destruction than nukes or at least they did during WWII?

In the gas attacks on the Kurds under Saddam in Iraq, I quoted stats which said 150,000 people may have been killed or wounded. Is that number not high enough for chemical weapons to be considered a weapon of mass destruction and if not, how many people would have to be killed in your opinion to make it one?

How many people have biological weapons killed in the 20th Century? How can you confirm this? And how can it be considered a weapon of mass destruction?

smh_23 · July 5, 2014, 2:12pm

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Does the fact that Obama issued a threat and Assad ignored it and used chemical weapons make Obama look weak. If Obama was perceived as strong, Assad would not have used the weapons? Right or wrong? That is the hurtle that is difficult to get over.[/quote]

No. In the same way that Bush doesn’t look weak by sole virtue of the fact that Saddam ignored his threats. In the same way that the Athenians don’t look weak by sole virtue of the fact that the Melians ignored their threats. In the same way that the Israelis don’t look weak by sole virtue of the fact that the Iranians have been ignoring their threats for years. If you choose an arbitrary and facile set of start and end points, anything can be made to look anything. If you assess the present matter in its natural course of development and resolution–as you absolutely must–then you’re talking about a foreign state impelled to do something it doesn’t want to do–under threat of military force. This is not weakness, no matter how furiously you try and twist it.

The (often bad) decisions made by foreign powers, including small tyrants, are almost entirely outside of American presidents’ control. The response to the (often bad) decisions is where weakness and strength, competence and incompetence live.

(This is what I’m talking about when I complain about the regurgitation of points that have already been addressed, and addressed, and addressed, addressed again. This thread feels somewhat like a charmless remake of Groundhog Day.)

I have countered this line of reasoning–and this is meant to be an actual estimate, not an exaggeration–eight to twelve times over the course of this thread. With the same (simple, obvious, really not at all controversial) counterargument. Which then went unaddressed.

Most recently, on the very same page as the post of yours which I’m presently responding to:

[One sentence has been adapted so that your words are directly addressed.]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
This entire discussion is revolving around a series of events the central incident of which involved a Russo-Syrian offer existentially contingent upon the [correct] Russo-Syrian belief that Obama was in fact preparing to launch punitive strikes against Assad’s regime in retaliation for its having used chemical weapons at Ghouta. If you take the time to understand this last sentence–and you really should, because it is an entirely uncontroversial account of the bare facts of the matter on which you are presently opining–you cannot in good faith write things like “[Obama’s threat] was not going to be backed up.”[/quote]

Edited

smh_23 · July 5, 2014, 12:55pm

“[Obama’s threat] was not going to be backed up” is simply not consistent with the bare, uncontroversial reality of the matter. You can prove me, and the Russians, and the Syrians, and the WSJ, and the NYT (and on and on and on) wrong, or this line of reasoning can be brought round to the storage shed and executed, as it should have been a week ago.

pat · July 5, 2014, 4:39pm

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

Bush told Saddam that he would invade if weapon expectors were not allowed access to sites. They were not…[/quote]

Then by pat’s logic and yours this amounts to a failure of foreign policy.[/quote]

No, because Bush made good on his threat. Obama did not.[/quote]

The goal? Get Syria to relinquish its chemical weapons. The method? Threat of air strikes. The outcome? Syria relinquishes its chemical weapons. The details are worth discussing. What’s not worth discussing are my first six sentences. You can try to twist a hundred which ways but it’s an exercise in futility. And it’s not as if there aren’t real foreign policy fuck ups of Obama to discuss.[/quote]

What’s the point if he just weaponizes other chemicals and uses them?[/quote]

You’re basically asking that Syria revert to a pre-industrial period, which is an obvious impossibility. Chlorine gas is not an effective chemical weapon, which themselves are ineffective weapons. Assad has relinquished his regime’s military grade chemical weapons. What is so difficult for you and Gkhan to understand about this? [/quote]

Chlorine gas is not an effective chemical weapon? Why don’t you ask the victims of the Chlorine gas attack?
Better yet mix some bleach and ammonia in your sink and test it for yourself. Let us know how it goes.

Again the point is missed. You cannot successful disarm Assad. He will clearly resort to anything and everything at his disposal. Why? Because he is not afraid of any repercussions for doing so. You take away a gun he uses a knife, you take the knife he’ll throw rocks. What he will not do, what he has clearly demonstrated he will not do, is quit.

Gkhan · July 5, 2014, 4:44pm

So, had the Syrians not caved, would be be bombing the hell out of Syria now?

I do not think the Russians would have let us do this, they did not and it ended civilly, thank God.

But they invaded the Ukraine knowing we would not dare strike them even with a defensive treaty with NATO in place.

That is my line of reasoning. That is why I feel Obama looks weak.

The Russian line during the whole “Arab Spring” was The US should keep the status quo, stop supporting rebellions and letting terrorists over run countries. Do you suppose the Russians got the weapons out of there, not for fear of Obama, but fear they would fall into terrorist’s hands?

pat · July 5, 2014, 5:22pm

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Pat is a good poster[/quote]

I think that if I tried my hand at the intellectual dishonesty that was so often and so plainly offered by Pat over the course of this thread, I would be swarmed by jagged teeth and torn to gory pieces. It is not rare at all that two people disagree here, and it is not rare that their debate turns hot or stern–but real dishonesty is actually relatively uncommon, particularly among people who come here often.[/quote]

Accusing me of dishonesty indicates to me you don’t have a point. It’s a flat lie. You just accuse me of dishonesty when the facts aren’t on your side.[/quote]

I have not accused you of dishonesty. I’ve posted your dishonesty in your own words. An accusation is unproved; your dishonesty throughout this thread is anything but that. You have claimed:

–That Assad may have used up all of his weapons.

–That the Syrians were giving their weapons to the Russians.

–That Syria’s accession to the CWC had nothing to do with the threat of American force.

–And, most recently, that “we didn’t specify particular chemicals.” My response to which went like this:

To which you replied:

Notice that your words were not wrong in my opinion or my interpretation: They were simply wrong. Factually inaccurate. Make-believe. Bullshit. I am running out of ways to explain your errors to you. And notice further that, instead of owning your error, you ignored and obfuscated and refused to acknowledge what every single poster in this discussion can plainly see. Just like all the times before. Or perhaps you were being “deliberately dismissive” yet again.

This is the height of dishonesty in argument. Or should I say nadir?[/quote]

My point was simply that we don’t actually know what happened to the chemical weapons in total. I was not making a statement of “fact” as you claim, I was making the point that it doesn’t matter much whether you disarm a person once they have already discharged their weapons. I was simply establishing that what happened after the fact is to little effect.
You got caught up in the minutia of the disarmament, while my point was simply that it was to little too late. I was not establishing “fact”,I was try to make a point.
I don’t need walls of texts full of insults and vitriol for you think I don’t under stand your point, but I do, I just disagree that, that is any marker of success.

You are saying that because of continual pressure by the U.S. resulted in the disarmament of some number of chemical munitions. The fact that we were able to get such a deal with out military engagement is a win.

I simply disagree with that opinion. My point is that an ultimatum was made and dutifully ignored. It is my opinion that the red line was a failure out of the gate because Syria ran right through the stop sign.
I further disagree with answering a botched ultimatum with another ultimatum. I do agree, how ever, that the less chemical weapons the better.
I don’t agree is had any tangible effect, particularly coming to find that he’s just picking through the industrial complex to weaponize other shit.

So here’s why it failed, again:

Threat was issued, threat was ignored.
The response to the violation was yet another threat
This threat, had not the Russians stepped would have ignored.
The problem with inviting Russia in to the mix greatly complicates the issue as it strengthens the Assad\ Putin alliance. Which now makes any military reprisal a much more tenuous as we will have to deal with Russia to a greater degree than we would have if we responded with an appropriate, accurate show of force when we had the chance to do so. Now the situation is vastly more difficult.

pat · July 5, 2014, 5:33pm

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Pat is a good poster[/quote]

I think that if I tried my hand at the intellectual dishonesty that was so often and so plainly offered by Pat over the course of this thread, I would be swarmed by jagged teeth and torn to gory pieces. It is not rare at all that two people disagree here, and it is not rare that their debate turns hot or stern–but real dishonesty is actually relatively uncommon, particularly among people who come here often.[/quote]

Accusing me of dishonesty indicates to me you don’t have a point. It’s a flat lie. You just accuse me of dishonesty when the facts aren’t on your side.[/quote]

You’ve been shifting the goal posts of this discussion as you went from sheer ignorance of its subject to a grossly misinformed position.[/quote]

I have not. The chlorine gas attack was just the point after kick. It serves to prove that Assad is not deterred in using chemicals to poison his people.
Is it not the point of removing chemicals weapons to stop people from being poisoned to death? Yet they were poisoned again just with different poisons. Assad is not deterred from poisoning people.

I have always contended that the ‘red line’ was a failure because it was ignored.
I have always stood by the fact that meeting a breach of the threat with another threat is simply bad business. It means we are not serious and would have been better had not to issue any threats.

Bismark · July 5, 2014, 5:41pm

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
My questions, good lord, again.?

Ok Bis. You said that chemical weapons are not a weapon of mass destruction. Reason was they do not cause enough deaths or mass destruction. I want to know, using the same logic, how nuclear weapons could be considered weapons of mass destruction when in fact conventional firebombing could cause more deaths and destruction than nukes or at least they did during WWII?

In the gas attacks on the Kurds under Saddam in Iraq, I quoted stats which said 150,000 people may have been killed or wounded. Is that number not high enough for chemical weapons to be considered a weapon of mass destruction and if not, how many people would have to be killed in your opinion to make it one?

How many people have biological weapons killed in the 20th Century? How can you confirm this? And how can it be considered a weapon of mass destruction?[/quote]

Incorrect, I have stated time and time again that I take issue with the term WMD itself, and prefer to use the analytical framework of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) to designate weapons that fall outside of the conventional spectrum. The term WMD is a normative and emotive one that can (and has been) used in securitizing speech acts to rally public support from a misinformed populace for preventative military operations.

Chemical weapons are not particularly effective upon the battlefield. They are expensive to manufacture relative to other weapons, their successful deployment is very dependent upon terrain and weather features of an area of operations, and when they are able to be successfully utilized, the casualties they inflict are less than those inflicted by conventional explosives if they are used in similar quantity. Chemical weapons are at best of limited utility in conducting area denial operations, establishing deterrence from attack, and psychological operations to ward against dissent.

The largest chemical attack perpetrate by Saddam Hussein in Halabja killed 5,000 people at the most. The roughly dozen chemical attacks outside of that event were much smaller in scale, so your 150 K casualty report is a stretch. Conventional weaponry employed in similar quantity would have resulted in greater casualties. Chemical weapons are an international relations bete noire because of the manner in which they injure and kill and their indiscriminate nature, not because of their efficacy.

In regard to the first generation nuclear weapons used in 1945, two total were detonated above Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many, many more incendiary munitions were used in Tokyo (453.7 tons of mostly incendiary devices, in fact). Comparing the two is disingenuous to say the least. Modern strategic nuclear forces are exponentially more powerful and sophisticated than the atomic bombs used in 1945.

Again, I am not going to participate in the WMD fallacy you continue to perpetuate. By the rubric of your flawed reasoning, the Kalashnikov series of assault rifles is the most prolific “WMD” in modern history. As it has an exponentially higher body count than all CBRN weapons since 1947.

A single strategic nuclear weapon is capable of killing hundreds of thousands within seconds. In the context of a nuclear exchange, millions would perish. Infectious biological weapons cannot be controlled, and once deployed, they are capable of infecting multiple regions, using modern transportation infrastructure as an infection conduit. Some weaponized strains of airborne pathogens mimic the symptoms of influenza, and if left untreated, have a 90% fatality rate. This concerns hundreds of thousands, and very possibly millions of individuals globally. Chemical weapons, by contrast, are one shot so to speak. Their effects are limited to a small geographic area and even extensive use only effects hundreds to low thousands. In conclusion, chemical weapons are relatively ineffective, and the assessment that they pose a limited threat comparable if not surpassed by conventional armaments is not a controversial position among subject matter experts.

pat · July 5, 2014, 5:43pm

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

What is the point of the Chemical Weapons Convention? What is the point in taking 1000 tons of Sarin and Mustard gas out of a failing state that is overrun by Islamic terrorists? You need somebody to explain these things to you?

[/quote]

Which again misses the point completely. The point is that despite the removal of these chemicals he is still committed to using chemicals weapons.
Despite having his arsenal reduced, he still chooses poison as a weapon. He is not deterred he just got more creative. He is clearly unafraid of reprisals.

pat · July 5, 2014, 5:52pm

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
So, had the Syrians not caved, would be be bombing the hell out of Syria now?

I do not think the Russians would have let us do this, they did not and it ended civilly, thank God.

But they invaded the Ukraine knowing we would not dare strike them even with a defensive treaty with NATO in place.

That is my line of reasoning. That is why I feel Obama looks weak.

The Russian line during the whole “Arab Spring” was The US should keep the status quo, stop supporting rebellions and letting terrorists over run countries. Do you suppose the Russians got the weapons out of there, not for fear of Obama, but fear they would fall into terrorist’s hands?
[/quote]

The window for targeted military strikes has passed. We could have bombed the hell out of them upon immediate confirmation that he used chemical weapons. But what I mean by ‘bombing the hell of them’ I actually mean targeted strikes on Syria’s chemical weapons stores and it’s industrial complex that is capable of producing dangerous chemicals.
I believe our toothless responses have only served to embolden the enemy, which as stated before it would have been better to issue not threat in the first place.
Mean what you say, say what you mean or say nothing.

pat · July 5, 2014, 6:01pm