Obama has Failed at Everything

[pat]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Bismark wrote:
https://blackboard.angelo.edu//bbcswebdav/institution/LFA/CSS/Course%20Material/SEC6302/Readings/Lesson_3/Art.pdf

The redline that chemical weapons use would change American “calculus” in Syria represented ambiguous deterrence. Ignored is the wrong word to use. Assad gambled that he could utilize chemical weapons with no consequence. Even if no red line had been spoken of, the use of CBRN is of grave concern to the international society of states, especially so for its most powerful inhabitants, which Assad was certainly aware of. Deterrence failed. No one is disputing that. That is no fault of anyone in the American foreign policy establishment, unless the CIA’s elite “Men who stare at goats” unit were then vacationing in rural Georgia. The ensuing result of successful peaceful compellence was directly connected to the aforementioned deterrence.

Deterrence: “Do not carry out action X, for if you do, I will strike you upon the head with this club.”

The redline did not present such an explicit threat of force, but merely a change of “calculus”, which is why the qualifier ambiguous is added. Deterrence functions most effectively when it is clearly presented to potential adversaries. However, if such an explicit conditional threat was issued and avoided by the Assad regime, over 1000 tons of military grade chemical weapons would still be in danger of falling into the hands of Islamic extremists. What benefits American and international security more: the removal of a 2,000,000 lbs of military grade chemical weapons from a jihadist beehive, or the preservation of roughly 1,500 Syrian nationals? International relations is a callous endeavor informed by rational egoism, whose ethics are decidedly guided by consequentialism. While the loss of innocent life was nothing short of tragic, to choose the latter would be nothing short of weakness underpinned by naive idealism.

Compellence: “I am now going to strike you upon the head with this club until you acquiesce to my demands.”

Compellence can take a peaceful or physical form. The Assad regime’s relinquishment of its military grade chemical weapons arsenal to avoid the actualization of the threat of American punitive strikes undeniably constitutes peaceful compellence. Nothing would be gained by targeted strikes because they were not necessary to enlist the cooperation of the Assad regime. Indeed, such punishment would greatly endanger the diplomacy that made the Syrian chemical deal possible. In addition, no such threat was issued in the initial ambiguous deterrence, so the concerns of a loss of face in the absence of physical compellence are misplaced.
[/quote]

Excellent post.

But the retort is forthcoming, and it’s going to knock your socks off:

"Oh yeah, well, here is a short list of shit that has nothing to do with your argument:

–Assad is still alive and killing people. Never mind that we are talking about chemical weapons diplomacy and not the end of the civil war. I am unable to reason with specificity, so take this mushy bolus of misconception, waffling, and tangential half-thoughts, and see what you can do with it, Jack! As an aside, I just wrote an article in which I rank the ten best and worst players in the NFL using data on their pole vaulting skills, passion for embroidery, blood type, and, of course, scrotal surface area. Mark Sanchez turns out to be the best QB in the history of the NFL, followed closely by Art Garfunkel.

–And chlorine was used! Never mind that the stupidity of this point has been explained to me by a handful of posters over multiple clear and well-assembled arguments to which I have never even considered responding. Never mind that what is at issue here is a stock of more than 2 million pounds of nerve and blister agents that are actual banned chemical weapons. Never mind that I cannot construct even a shitty half-argument wherein the strapping of some explosives to a common industrial and domestic agent in order to kill a few Syrian civilians constitutes an American foreign policy failure. Obama mishandled the situation because he did’t go in and empty all the factories, supermarkets, homes, and pools in the entire country of Syria. As an aside, Ronald Reagan was a terrible president, because my grandmother broke her leg during his administration, and he didn’t do anything to stop it, incompetent dick that he was."[/quote]

Explain how using chlorine gas to deliberately kill people is not a chemical attack? If it’s not a chemical attack, I am curious what you think it is?

[smh_23]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Edit: I have responded to many of your points in separate posts. But this one is the big one. If you’re going to ignore a bunch of material as you have been doing throughout this thread, ignore everything else, and respond to this. Good luck.

[quote]pat wrote:

I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]

Produce the exact post of mine wherein I claimed that Ghouta “be the only incidence of chemical attack.” Post my words verbatim.

I could have said you don’t know your facts, I could have said you were being intellectually dishonest by thinking that was the only incidence, when in fact it’s only the most well documented and confirmed, but not the only attack.[/quote]

Again, produce the post wherein I claimed this. In your next post. Use my exact words. I’ll be waiting.

[/quote]

It’s the only attack you mentioned, several times as these two examples demonstrate. If you knew that Ghouta wasn’t the only region attacked you gave no acknowledgement of that fact.

“Except that this entire discussion is revolving around a series of events the central incident of which involved a Russo-Syrian offer existentially contingent upon the 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.”

And…

“Addressed many times (not that you have seemed to notice). Nobody has claimed that Ghouta did not happen. But it isn’t evidence of the mishandling that you need to demonstrate in order to win (or to begin to participate in) the debate. That mishandling is a function of the rationality or irrationality of the response to Ghouta.”

and…

"2. Chemical weapons are used at Ghouta. "

What I can do here is say you don’t know a fuckwit what you are talking about because you never acknowledged prior it being pointed out to you, that Ghouta was not the only chemical attack.

What you would then say, after a litany of name calling, is “What I meant was…”

To which I can retort, bullshit and your ignorance on the matter is on full display.

We can dosey-doe with personal attacks about how little each other know about the situation, but I am not interested in that.

Here is what I am interested in, what do you think I mean when I say ‘it’ was a failure?
I am curious to know if you understand my point at all, or even know what it is?
Why do you think, I think it was a failure?
I think a little clarity could go along way…
[/quote]

As I expected.

You didn’t evidence your claim. But first, let me tell you a little about about how bad you are at all of this:

Ghouta is in those quotes because those quotes are descriptions of the chain of events revolving around the September 2013 Russo-Syrian-American chemical weapons and Ghouta is the attack which led to that deal. It is in the timeline because [b]it is the timeline[/b]. When I say that “Obama was in fact preparing to launch punitive strikes against Assad’s regime in retaliation for its having used chemical weapons at Ghouta,” I mean exactly that, because that’s exactly what was happening. Evidence here:

“Over and over, officials from Obama on down have stressed that a strike on Syria would be a narrow and direct response to an alleged Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack on rebel-held or contested areas on the outskirts of Damascus [which, in case you don’t know, is Ghouta].”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/officials-press-lawmakers-to-approve-syria-strike-obama-invokes-congresss-credibility/2013/09/04/4c93a858-155c-11e3-804b-d3a1a3a18f2c_story.html

…and here…

[quote]
"Allegations of a chemical weapons attack carried out by al-Assad’s forces in a Damascus suburb last week triggered the international machinations, which have been growing as body counts on both sides in the more-than-2-year-old civil war have increased.

Those who claimed to have survived the alleged chemical weapons attack described a horrific scene in the town of Zamalka [One of the neighborhoods hit in the…yep…Ghouta attack]."[/quote]

…and at good old Wikipedia (don’t bother: There are hundreds more sources for me to choose from, if it needs to come to that)…

“The impetus toward destroying Syria’s chemical weapons began with a 9 September rhetorical suggestion by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that Syria turn over all of its chemical weapons within a week. At the time, the U.S. and France headed a coalition of countries on the verge of carrying out air strikes on Syria in response to the 21 August, 2013 Ghouta attacks.”

If I had put the Khan al-Assal attack, an incident of which I have been aware since it happened in the Spring of 2013 (while I was preparing to go to North Africa for three months, and therefore reading international–and especially Middle Eastern–news even more closely than I normally do, which is still obviously far more closely than can be said of you), into my timeline, I would have been making a false timeline, because it had nothing to do with the events about which we are talking. If you and I are talking about deadlift form, and I never mention the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, it does not logically follow that I don’t know what the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is. It’s just that it has jack and shit to do with deadlift form, in the same way that no attack other than Ghouta has anything to do with the preparations to strike Syria in September 2013.

Which brings me to back to your original claim:

[quote]pat wrote:
I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]

Produce direct evidence, in my words, of my “thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack.” Not sentences wherein I use the word “Ghouta,” and not sentences wherein I correctly describe Ghouta as the impetus for the September 2013 Russo-Syrian deal. Produce the post wherein I claimed or implied that no chemical attack other than Ghouta had happened.

Good luck, considering that I’ve never thought that Ghouta was the only alleged chemical attack in Syria, and I read about the others more than a year before you ever even thought to look casually into this matter. But go ahead and evidence your claim. I will continue waiting.

[smh_23]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]
–“And chlorine was used! Never mind that the stupidity of this point has been explained to me by a handful of posters over multiple clear and well-assembled arguments to which I have never even considered responding. Never mind that what is at issue here is a stock of more than 2 million pounds of nerve and blister agents that are actual banned chemical weapons. Never mind that I cannot construct even a shitty half-argument wherein the strapping of some explosives to a common industrial and domestic agent in order to kill a few Syrian civilians constitutes an American foreign policy failure. Obama mishandled the situation because he did’t go in and empty all the factories, supermarkets, homes, and pools in the entire country of Syria. As an aside, Ronald Reagan was a terrible president, because my grandmother broke her leg during his administration, and he didn’t do anything to stop it, incompetent dick that he was.”[/quote]

Explain how using chlorine gas to deliberately kill people is not a chemical attack? If it’s not a chemical attack, I am curious what you think it is? [/quote]

Is that what you got from the paragraph you quoted? From the ones Sexmachine and Bismark wrote to you? Do you think your half-rhetorical counter-question addresses the point it quoted?

Read and respond to substance or give up.

[pat]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]
–“And chlorine was used! Never mind that the stupidity of this point has been explained to me by a handful of posters over multiple clear and well-assembled arguments to which I have never even considered responding. Never mind that what is at issue here is a stock of more than 2 million pounds of nerve and blister agents that are actual banned chemical weapons. Never mind that I cannot construct even a shitty half-argument wherein the strapping of some explosives to a common industrial and domestic agent in order to kill a few Syrian civilians constitutes an American foreign policy failure. Obama mishandled the situation because he did’t go in and empty all the factories, supermarkets, homes, and pools in the entire country of Syria. As an aside, Ronald Reagan was a terrible president, because my grandmother broke her leg during his administration, and he didn’t do anything to stop it, incompetent dick that he was.”[/quote]

Explain how using chlorine gas to deliberately kill people is not a chemical attack? If it’s not a chemical attack, I am curious what you think it is? [/quote]

Is that what you got from the paragraph you quoted? From the ones Sexmachine and Bismark wrote to you? Do you think your half-rhetorical counter-question addresses the point it quoted?

Read and respond to substance or give up.[/quote]

Answer the question.

[smh_23]

“Explain how using Axe Body Spray to deliberately kill people is not a chemical attack? If it’s not a chemical attack, I am curious what you think it is?”

–Question relating to the failure of the Obama administration to dispossess Bashar al-Assad of his ability to hold people down and kill them by emptying cans of aerosol deodorant into their mouths; iron argument for the futility of forcing the Syrians to accede to the CWC and taking 2 million pounds of banned chemicals weapons such as Sarin and Mustard from them; stinging criticism of the CWC’s utility in the first place.

Well done, sir. You have called into question everything we know about war and diplomacy.

[pat]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Edit: I have responded to many of your points in separate posts. But this one is the big one. If you’re going to ignore a bunch of material as you have been doing throughout this thread, ignore everything else, and respond to this. Good luck.

[quote]pat wrote:

I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]

Produce the exact post of mine wherein I claimed that Ghouta “be the only incidence of chemical attack.” Post my words verbatim.

I could have said you don’t know your facts, I could have said you were being intellectually dishonest by thinking that was the only incidence, when in fact it’s only the most well documented and confirmed, but not the only attack.[/quote]

Again, produce the post wherein I claimed this. In your next post. Use my exact words. I’ll be waiting.

[/quote]

It’s the only attack you mentioned, several times as these two examples demonstrate. If you knew that Ghouta wasn’t the only region attacked you gave no acknowledgement of that fact.

“Except that this entire discussion is revolving around a series of events the central incident of which involved a Russo-Syrian offer existentially contingent upon the 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.”

And…

“Addressed many times (not that you have seemed to notice). Nobody has claimed that Ghouta did not happen. But it isn’t evidence of the mishandling that you need to demonstrate in order to win (or to begin to participate in) the debate. That mishandling is a function of the rationality or irrationality of the response to Ghouta.”

and…

"2. Chemical weapons are used at Ghouta. "

What I can do here is say you don’t know a fuckwit what you are talking about because you never acknowledged prior it being pointed out to you, that Ghouta was not the only chemical attack.

What you would then say, after a litany of name calling, is “What I meant was…”

To which I can retort, bullshit and your ignorance on the matter is on full display.

We can dosey-doe with personal attacks about how little each other know about the situation, but I am not interested in that.

Here is what I am interested in, what do you think I mean when I say ‘it’ was a failure?
I am curious to know if you understand my point at all, or even know what it is?
Why do you think, I think it was a failure?
I think a little clarity could go along way…
[/quote]

As I expected.

You didn’t evidence your claim. But first, let me tell you a little about about how bad you are at all of this:

Ghouta is in those quotes because those quotes are descriptions of the chain of events revolving around the September 2013 Russo-Syrian-American chemical weapons and Ghouta is the attack which led to that deal. It is in the timeline because [b]it is the timeline[/b]. When I say that “Obama was in fact preparing to launch punitive strikes against Assad’s regime in retaliation for its having used chemical weapons at Ghouta,” I mean exactly that, because that’s exactly what was happening. Evidence here:

“Over and over, officials from Obama on down have stressed that a strike on Syria would be a narrow and direct response to an alleged Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack on rebel-held or contested areas on the outskirts of Damascus [which, in case you don’t know, is Ghouta].”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/officials-press-lawmakers-to-approve-syria-strike-obama-invokes-congresss-credibility/2013/09/04/4c93a858-155c-11e3-804b-d3a1a3a18f2c_story.html

…and here…

[quote]
"Allegations of a chemical weapons attack carried out by al-Assad’s forces in a Damascus suburb last week triggered the international machinations, which have been growing as body counts on both sides in the more-than-2-year-old civil war have increased.

Those who claimed to have survived the alleged chemical weapons attack described a horrific scene in the town of Zamalka [One of the neighborhoods hit in the…yep…Ghouta attack]."[/quote]

…and at good old Wikipedia (don’t bother: There are hundreds more sources for me to choose from, if it needs to come to that)…

“The impetus toward destroying Syria’s chemical weapons began with a 9 September rhetorical suggestion by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that Syria turn over all of its chemical weapons within a week. At the time, the U.S. and France headed a coalition of countries on the verge of carrying out air strikes on Syria in response to the 21 August, 2013 Ghouta attacks.”

If I had put the Khan al-Assal attack, an incident of which I have been aware since it happened in the Spring of 2013 (while I was preparing to go to North Africa for three months, and therefore reading international–and especially Middle Eastern–news even more closely than I normally do, which is still obviously far more closely than can be said of you), into my timeline, I would have been making a false timeline, because it had nothing to do with the events about which we are talking. If you and I are talking about deadlift form, and I never mention the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, it does not logically follow that I don’t know what the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is. It’s just that it has jack and shit to do with deadlift form, in the same way that no attack other than Ghouta has anything to do with the preparations to strike Syria in September 2013.

Which brings me to back to your original claim:

[quote]pat wrote:
I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]

Produce direct evidence, in my words, of my “thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack.” Not sentences wherein I use the word “Ghouta,” and not sentences wherein I correctly describe Ghouta as the impetus for the September 2013 Russo-Syrian deal. Produce the post wherein I claimed or implied that no chemical attack other than Ghouta had happened.

Good luck, considering that I’ve never thought that Ghouta was the only alleged chemical attack in Syria, and I read about the others more than a year before you ever even thought to look casually into this matter. But go ahead and evidence your claim. I will continue waiting.[/quote]

Answer the question I asked in my response, I am uninterested in the rest of this tripe, I am only interested in the question I asked at the end. Answer… the… question…

[smh_23]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]
–“And chlorine was used! Never mind that the stupidity of this point has been explained to me by a handful of posters over multiple clear and well-assembled arguments to which I have never even considered responding. Never mind that what is at issue here is a stock of more than 2 million pounds of nerve and blister agents that are actual banned chemical weapons. Never mind that I cannot construct even a shitty half-argument wherein the strapping of some explosives to a common industrial and domestic agent in order to kill a few Syrian civilians constitutes an American foreign policy failure. Obama mishandled the situation because he did’t go in and empty all the factories, supermarkets, homes, and pools in the entire country of Syria. As an aside, Ronald Reagan was a terrible president, because my grandmother broke her leg during his administration, and he didn’t do anything to stop it, incompetent dick that he was.”[/quote]

Explain how using chlorine gas to deliberately kill people is not a chemical attack? If it’s not a chemical attack, I am curious what you think it is? [/quote]

Is that what you got from the paragraph you quoted? From the ones Sexmachine and Bismark wrote to you? Do you think your half-rhetorical counter-question addresses the point it quoted?

Read and respond to substance or give up.[/quote]

Answer the question.[/quote]

The question is not appropriate, because neither Sexmachine, nor Bismark, nor I has claimed that a chlorine attack is not a chemical attack.

What have we said? Do you know? Do you care? You should. Figure it out, respond to that, or pick your clear, ringing, utter defeat up and carry it away with you.

[smh_23]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Edit: I have responded to many of your points in separate posts. But this one is the big one. If you’re going to ignore a bunch of material as you have been doing throughout this thread, ignore everything else, and respond to this. Good luck.

[quote]pat wrote:

I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]

Produce the exact post of mine wherein I claimed that Ghouta “be the only incidence of chemical attack.” Post my words verbatim.

I could have said you don’t know your facts, I could have said you were being intellectually dishonest by thinking that was the only incidence, when in fact it’s only the most well documented and confirmed, but not the only attack.[/quote]

Again, produce the post wherein I claimed this. In your next post. Use my exact words. I’ll be waiting.

[/quote]

It’s the only attack you mentioned, several times as these two examples demonstrate. If you knew that Ghouta wasn’t the only region attacked you gave no acknowledgement of that fact.

“Except that this entire discussion is revolving around a series of events the central incident of which involved a Russo-Syrian offer existentially contingent upon the 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.”

And…

“Addressed many times (not that you have seemed to notice). Nobody has claimed that Ghouta did not happen. But it isn’t evidence of the mishandling that you need to demonstrate in order to win (or to begin to participate in) the debate. That mishandling is a function of the rationality or irrationality of the response to Ghouta.”

and…

"2. Chemical weapons are used at Ghouta. "

What I can do here is say you don’t know a fuckwit what you are talking about because you never acknowledged prior it being pointed out to you, that Ghouta was not the only chemical attack.

What you would then say, after a litany of name calling, is “What I meant was…”

To which I can retort, bullshit and your ignorance on the matter is on full display.

We can dosey-doe with personal attacks about how little each other know about the situation, but I am not interested in that.

Here is what I am interested in, what do you think I mean when I say ‘it’ was a failure?
I am curious to know if you understand my point at all, or even know what it is?
Why do you think, I think it was a failure?
I think a little clarity could go along way…
[/quote]

As I expected.

You didn’t evidence your claim. But first, let me tell you a little about about how bad you are at all of this:

Ghouta is in those quotes because those quotes are descriptions of the chain of events revolving around the September 2013 Russo-Syrian-American chemical weapons and Ghouta is the attack which led to that deal. It is in the timeline because [b]it is the timeline[/b]. When I say that “Obama was in fact preparing to launch punitive strikes against Assad’s regime in retaliation for its having used chemical weapons at Ghouta,” I mean exactly that, because that’s exactly what was happening. Evidence here:

“Over and over, officials from Obama on down have stressed that a strike on Syria would be a narrow and direct response to an alleged Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack on rebel-held or contested areas on the outskirts of Damascus [which, in case you don’t know, is Ghouta].”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/officials-press-lawmakers-to-approve-syria-strike-obama-invokes-congresss-credibility/2013/09/04/4c93a858-155c-11e3-804b-d3a1a3a18f2c_story.html

…and here…

[quote]
"Allegations of a chemical weapons attack carried out by al-Assad’s forces in a Damascus suburb last week triggered the international machinations, which have been growing as body counts on both sides in the more-than-2-year-old civil war have increased.

Those who claimed to have survived the alleged chemical weapons attack described a horrific scene in the town of Zamalka [One of the neighborhoods hit in the…yep…Ghouta attack]."[/quote]

…and at good old Wikipedia (don’t bother: There are hundreds more sources for me to choose from, if it needs to come to that)…

“The impetus toward destroying Syria’s chemical weapons began with a 9 September rhetorical suggestion by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that Syria turn over all of its chemical weapons within a week. At the time, the U.S. and France headed a coalition of countries on the verge of carrying out air strikes on Syria in response to the 21 August, 2013 Ghouta attacks.”

If I had put the Khan al-Assal attack, an incident of which I have been aware since it happened in the Spring of 2013 (while I was preparing to go to North Africa for three months, and therefore reading international–and especially Middle Eastern–news even more closely than I normally do, which is still obviously far more closely than can be said of you), into my timeline, I would have been making a false timeline, because it had nothing to do with the events about which we are talking. If you and I are talking about deadlift form, and I never mention the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, it does not logically follow that I don’t know what the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is. It’s just that it has jack and shit to do with deadlift form, in the same way that no attack other than Ghouta has anything to do with the preparations to strike Syria in September 2013.

Which brings me to back to your original claim:

[quote]pat wrote:
I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]

Produce direct evidence, in my words, of my “thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack.” Not sentences wherein I use the word “Ghouta,” and not sentences wherein I correctly describe Ghouta as the impetus for the September 2013 Russo-Syrian deal. Produce the post wherein I claimed or implied that no chemical attack other than Ghouta had happened.

Good luck, considering that I’ve never thought that Ghouta was the only alleged chemical attack in Syria, and I read about the others more than a year before you ever even thought to look casually into this matter. But go ahead and evidence your claim. I will continue waiting.[/quote]

Answer the question I asked in my response, I am uninterested in the rest of this tripe, I am only interested in the question I asked at the end. Answer… the… question…[/quote]

Make a claim,
evidence the claim,
or retract the claim.

Read that poem a few more times. And then take a look at this…

[quote]pat wrote:
I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]

…and produce direct evidence, in my words, of my “thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack.” Not sentences wherein I use the word “Ghouta,” and not sentences wherein I correctly describe Ghouta as the impetus for the September 2013 Russo-Syrian deal. Produce the post wherein I claimed or implied that no chemical attack other than Ghouta had happened.

Good luck, considering that I’ve never thought that Ghouta was the only alleged chemical attack in Syria, and I read about the others more than a year before you ever even thought to look casually into this matter. But go ahead and evidence your claim. I will continue waiting.

[pat]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

The question is not appropriate, because neither Sexmachine, nor Bismark, nor I has claimed that a chlorine attack is not a chemical attack.

What have we said? Do you know? Do you care? You should. Figure it out, respond to that, or pick your clear, ringing, utter defeat up and carry it away with you.[/quote]

So you admit that using chlorine gas, delivered in the form of a weapon is in fact a chemical attack?

[kamui]

If one of my students doesn’t stop when i say “stop”, i consider it a failure on my part.

And as a rule, i never repeat an order, and i never announce a disciplinary measure if i do not intend to apply it.
Because, as a teacher, i can’t afford to look that weak.

But…
I’m only the most powerful man in the classroom. Not the most powerful man on Earth.
And i only deal with students, not with the heads of sovereign states.

International relationships aren’t ruled by classroom logic.

[smh_23]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

The question is not appropriate, because neither Sexmachine, nor Bismark, nor I has claimed that a chlorine attack is not a chemical attack.

What have we said? Do you know? Do you care? You should. Figure it out, respond to that, or pick your clear, ringing, utter defeat up and carry it away with you.[/quote]

So you admit that using chlorine gas, delivered in the form of a weapon is in fact a chemical attack?
[/quote]

No I do not “admit” it, because it has nothing to do with anything about my argument, it is not the least bit controversial (an attack with a chemical is a chemical attack–is this the kind of tautological position you are forced to take in order to get something correct in a debate?), and neither I, nor Sexmachine, nor Bismark has denied it a single time throughout the entire course of this thread.

Now, you want to talk about chlorine? Respond to the points that we took the time to make. Or continue to think and argue like a teenage girl. It is your choice. But why, why take the time to debate, if you won’t debate?

[smh_23]

[quote]
And as a rule, i never repeat an order, and i never announce a disciplinary measure if i do not intend to apply it. [/quote]

“Except that this entire discussion is revolving around a series of events the central incident of which involved a Russo-Syrian offer existentially contingent upon the 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.”

Quoting myself because this has been responded to a few dozen times now, and in a few dozen different ways.

[kamui]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

And as a rule, i never repeat an order, and i never announce a disciplinary measure if i do not intend to apply it. [/quote]

“Except that this entire discussion is revolving around a series of events the central incident of which involved a Russo-Syrian offer existentially contingent upon the 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.”

Quoting myself because this has been responded to a few dozen times now, and in a few dozen different ways.

In classroom logic, if i say “stop or…” and you don’t stop immediatly,
you will be punished.
I won’t ostensibly “prepare my punishment” and wait until you finally get to comply.
It’s already too late, and there won’t be any more negociation.

But then again, that’s classroom logic.

[smh_23]

[quote]kamui wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

And as a rule, i never repeat an order, and i never announce a disciplinary measure if i do not intend to apply it. [/quote]

“Except that this entire discussion is revolving around a series of events the central incident of which involved a Russo-Syrian offer existentially contingent upon the 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.”

Quoting myself because this has been responded to a few dozen times now, and in a few dozen different ways.

In classroom logic, if i say “stop or…” and you don’t stop immediatly,
you will be punished.
I won’t ostensibly “prepare my punishment” and wait until you finally get to comply.
It’s already too late, and there won’t be any more negociation.

But then again, that’s classroom logic.

[/quote]

Perhaps there is a reason that international diplomacy is not conducted as though it is one giant analogy to the disciplining of kids in classrooms.

[pat]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
“Explain how using Axe Body Spray to deliberately kill people is not a chemical attack? If it’s not a chemical attack, I am curious what you think it is?”

–Question relating to the failure of the Obama administration to dispossess Bashar al-Assad of his ability to hold people down and kill them by emptying cans of aerosol deodorant into their mouths; iron argument for the futility of forcing the Syrians to accede to the CWC and taking 2 million pounds of banned chemicals weapons such as Sarin and Mustard from them; stinging criticism of the CWC’s utility in the first place.

Well done, sir. You have called into question everything we know about war and diplomacy.[/quote]

You still have not answered the question. Answer the question. It’s a simple question.

[kamui]

[quote]
Perhaps there is a pretty good reason that international diplomacy is not conducted as though it is one giant analogy to the disciplining of kids in classrooms.[/quote]

Indeed.

[smh_23]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
“Explain how using Axe Body Spray to deliberately kill people is not a chemical attack? If it’s not a chemical attack, I am curious what you think it is?”

–Question relating to the failure of the Obama administration to dispossess Bashar al-Assad of his ability to hold people down and kill them by emptying cans of aerosol deodorant into their mouths; iron argument for the futility of forcing the Syrians to accede to the CWC and taking 2 million pounds of banned chemicals weapons such as Sarin and Mustard from them; stinging criticism of the CWC’s utility in the first place.

Well done, sir. You have called into question everything we know about war and diplomacy.[/quote]

You still have not answered the question. Answer the question. It’s a simple question.[/quote]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
it is not the least bit controversial (an attack with a chemical is a chemical attack–is this the kind of tautological position you are forced to take in order to get something correct in a debate?)[/quote]

Do you know what “tautological” means? And “not the least bit controversial”? Or don’t you?

[pat]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

The question is not appropriate, because neither Sexmachine, nor Bismark, nor I has claimed that a chlorine attack is not a chemical attack.

What have we said? Do you know? Do you care? You should. Figure it out, respond to that, or pick your clear, ringing, utter defeat up and carry it away with you.[/quote]

So you admit that using chlorine gas, delivered in the form of a weapon is in fact a chemical attack?
[/quote]

No I do not “admit” it, because it has nothing to do with anything about my argument, it is not the least bit controversial (an attack with a chemical is a chemical attack–is this the kind of tautological position you are forced to take in order to get something correct in a debate?), and neither I, nor Sexmachine, nor Bismark has denied it a single time throughout the entire course of this thread.

Now, you want to talk about chlorine? Respond to the points that we took the time to make. Or continue to think and argue like a teenage girl. It is your choice. But why, why take the time to debate, if you won’t debate?[/quote]

So your stance is that delivering chlorine gas, in the form of a weapon is not a chemical attack? You are saying, hence, the attack with chlorine gas did not actually take place? Or are you denying chlorine gas is not a chemical? Or are you saying the attack did not take place?

[smh_23]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Edit: I have responded to many of your points in separate posts. But this one is the big one. If you’re going to ignore a bunch of material as you have been doing throughout this thread, ignore everything else, and respond to this. Good luck.

[quote]pat wrote:

I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]

Produce the exact post of mine wherein I claimed that Ghouta “be the only incidence of chemical attack.” Post my words verbatim.

I could have said you don’t know your facts, I could have said you were being intellectually dishonest by thinking that was the only incidence, when in fact it’s only the most well documented and confirmed, but not the only attack.[/quote]

Again, produce the post wherein I claimed this. In your next post. Use my exact words. I’ll be waiting.

[/quote]

It’s the only attack you mentioned, several times as these two examples demonstrate. If you knew that Ghouta wasn’t the only region attacked you gave no acknowledgement of that fact.

“Except that this entire discussion is revolving around a series of events the central incident of which involved a Russo-Syrian offer existentially contingent upon the 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.”

And…

“Addressed many times (not that you have seemed to notice). Nobody has claimed that Ghouta did not happen. But it isn’t evidence of the mishandling that you need to demonstrate in order to win (or to begin to participate in) the debate. That mishandling is a function of the rationality or irrationality of the response to Ghouta.”

and…

"2. Chemical weapons are used at Ghouta. "

What I can do here is say you don’t know a fuckwit what you are talking about because you never acknowledged prior it being pointed out to you, that Ghouta was not the only chemical attack.

What you would then say, after a litany of name calling, is “What I meant was…”

To which I can retort, bullshit and your ignorance on the matter is on full display.

We can dosey-doe with personal attacks about how little each other know about the situation, but I am not interested in that.

Here is what I am interested in, what do you think I mean when I say ‘it’ was a failure?
I am curious to know if you understand my point at all, or even know what it is?
Why do you think, I think it was a failure?
I think a little clarity could go along way…
[/quote]

As I expected.

You didn’t evidence your claim. But first, let me tell you a little about about how bad you are at all of this:

Ghouta is in those quotes because those quotes are descriptions of the chain of events revolving around the September 2013 Russo-Syrian-American chemical weapons and Ghouta is the attack which led to that deal. It is in the timeline because [b]it is the timeline[/b]. When I say that “Obama was in fact preparing to launch punitive strikes against Assad’s regime in retaliation for its having used chemical weapons at Ghouta,” I mean exactly that, because that’s exactly what was happening. Evidence here:

“Over and over, officials from Obama on down have stressed that a strike on Syria would be a narrow and direct response to an alleged Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack on rebel-held or contested areas on the outskirts of Damascus [which, in case you don’t know, is Ghouta].”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/officials-press-lawmakers-to-approve-syria-strike-obama-invokes-congresss-credibility/2013/09/04/4c93a858-155c-11e3-804b-d3a1a3a18f2c_story.html

…and here…

"Allegations of a chemical weapons attack carried out by al-Assad’s forces in a Damascus suburb last week triggered the international machinations, which have been growing as body counts on both sides in the more-than-2-year-old civil war have increased.

Those who claimed to have survived the alleged chemical weapons attack described a horrific scene in the town of Zamalka [One of the neighborhoods hit in the…yep…Ghouta attack]."[/quote]

…and at good old Wikipedia (don’t bother: There are hundreds more sources for me to choose from, if it needs to come to that)…

“The impetus toward destroying Syria’s chemical weapons began with a 9 September rhetorical suggestion by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that Syria turn over all of its chemical weapons within a week. At the time, the U.S. and France headed a coalition of countries on the verge of carrying out air strikes on Syria in response to the 21 August, 2013 Ghouta attacks.”

If I had put the Khan al-Assal attack, an incident of which I have been aware since it happened in the Spring of 2013 (while I was preparing to go to North Africa for three months, and therefore reading international–and especially Middle Eastern–news even more closely than I normally do, which is still obviously far more closely than can be said of you), into my timeline, I would have been making a false timeline, because it had nothing to do with the events about which we are talking. If you and I are talking about deadlift form, and I never mention the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, it does not logically follow that I don’t know what the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is. It’s just that it has jack and shit to do with deadlift form, in the same way that no attack other than Ghouta has anything to do with the preparations to strike Syria in September 2013.

Which brings me to back to your original claim:

[quote]pat wrote:
I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]

Produce direct evidence, in my words, of my “thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack.” Not sentences wherein I use the word “Ghouta,” and not sentences wherein I correctly describe Ghouta as the impetus for the September 2013 Russo-Syrian deal. Produce the post wherein I claimed or implied that no chemical attack other than Ghouta had happened.

Good luck, considering that I’ve never thought that Ghouta was the only alleged chemical attack in Syria, and I read about the others more than a year before you ever even thought to look casually into this matter. But go ahead and evidence your claim. I will continue waiting.[/quote]

Answer the question I asked in my response, I am uninterested in the rest of this tripe, I am only interested in the question I asked at the end. Answer… the… question…[/quote]

Make a claim,
evidence the claim,
or retract the claim.

Read that poem a few more times. And then take a look at this…

[quote]pat wrote:
I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]

…and produce direct evidence, in my words, of my “thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack.” Not sentences wherein I use the word “Ghouta,” and not sentences wherein I correctly describe Ghouta as the impetus for the September 2013 Russo-Syrian deal. Produce the post wherein I claimed or implied that no chemical attack other than Ghouta had happened.

Good luck, considering that I’ve never thought that Ghouta was the only alleged chemical attack in Syria, and I read about the others more than a year before you ever even thought to look casually into this matter. But go ahead and evidence your claim. I will continue waiting.

Re-posted ^ to make sure it doesn’t slip through the cracks, no matter how much you’d like it to.

[pat]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
“Explain how using Axe Body Spray to deliberately kill people is not a chemical attack? If it’s not a chemical attack, I am curious what you think it is?”

–Question relating to the failure of the Obama administration to dispossess Bashar al-Assad of his ability to hold people down and kill them by emptying cans of aerosol deodorant into their mouths; iron argument for the futility of forcing the Syrians to accede to the CWC and taking 2 million pounds of banned chemicals weapons such as Sarin and Mustard from them; stinging criticism of the CWC’s utility in the first place.

Well done, sir. You have called into question everything we know about war and diplomacy.[/quote]

You still have not answered the question. Answer the question. It’s a simple question.[/quote]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
it is not the least bit controversial (an attack with a chemical is a chemical attack–is this the kind of tautological position you are forced to take in order to get something correct in a debate?)[/quote]

Do you know what “tautological” means? And “not the least bit controversial”? Or don’t you?[/quote]

You’re dodging.