What I don’t understand is the urgency of debating the decision to bring Syrian refugees to the US. What’s the goal, on Obama’s part, of making a huge issue of it right now, as opposed to putting it off until some point in the future when the memory of the Paris attacks fades? Realistically, there will be just as many refugees in a year, in two, in three, etc.
All this is going to do is compromise the Dems’ chances at the next presidential election. WTF is Obama doing? And he seems very emotionally invested into winning the debate, too.
By the way, the really cute part of all this is that right now Obama is doing all he can to create more refugees from the Donbass region of Ukraine. He encouraged Putin and immediately Russians went on the offensive in Ukraine. This small aside is for those who will be tempted to suggest that Obama cares about refugees.
Clarissa's Blog 
Because Obama knows that the Syrian refugee crisis is his creation. If he’d kept his word and struck Syria after Assad crossed Obama’s “red line” by using poison gas, the U.S. could have wiped out Syria’s air force while it was on the ground, and Assad’s massive bombings of his own civilian population centers would have been brought to a halt.
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You think he feels guilt? That’s a generous explanation. It’s far more generous than mine which is that this is simply a case of stubbornness and wanting to prove a point.
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But I agree that this endless dithering on foreign policy is deeply annoying and destructive. Just make up your mind and stick to it for two minutes already.
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You’re right. I think that Obama’s too arrogant to admit even to himself that he’s wrong about anything, so why would he feel any guilt?
I don’t dislike him personally, but he is the WORST President of my entire life, bumping Carter and W. Bush down to 2nd and 3rd place on that list.
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The refugee issue is important to the Muslim community and its important to Coalition members in Europe. Inaction by the US was an issue in Europe prior to the Paris attack, and the US needs a committed Coalition. The issue doesn’t help Dems in the US, but I really think Obama dislikes Hillary.
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France has had three days to invoke Article 5 of the NATO coalition, which would bring twenty-eight nations into its “France is at war” declaration.
Even I can’t blame Obama for Hollande’s silence.
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As I said from the start, all we can expect from Hollande is a couple of days of half-hearted bombing and a ton of sucking up to Putin.
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Ah! That’s what I suspected: he is not entirely averse to sabotaging her.
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He hates Bill WAY more… I think if anything he’d screw her up to spite him even though that is a wierd angle to take
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Why does he hate Bill? I get him not liking her (he doesn’t seem to like white women in general, especially one who tried to keep people from fulfilling his destiny) but I was unaware of tension between him and Bill….
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“He doesn’t seem to like white women in general…”
Wow. That’s a new one. I’ve seen Obama haters express themselves in a million ways, but that’s a new one for me.
Does that include his mother and grandmother?
Conservatives sure TRY to sound reasonable, but now and then they slip and their ugly stupidity is revealed.
“Obama doesn’t seem to like white women”
Wow.
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“..he doesn’t seem to like white women in general”
Calm down.
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Oh… “in general”
That’s okay then.
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Which parent did he write a book about? (hint: not his white mother, who in fairness wasn’t a very good parent though miles ahead of the absent father he was obsessed with)
And of course he famously described his grandmother as a “typical white person” or in more detail “a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe”
Feel the love!
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I don’t think he really wrote that book. Politicians’ books are usually ghost-written, which is why I never read them.
In any case, based on this criterion, I must really hate white women. 🙂
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I don’t think Obama dislikes white women or any women, but let’s not pretend that we don’t know how often people dislike somebody simply because that person reminds them of the parent with whom they have a difficult relationship. For instance, anybody who says “I have a migraine” is my sworn enemy.
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Back during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign, Bill Clinton reportedly made some remarks about Obama (Sample quotes: “A few years ago, this guy would have been carrying our bags / bringing our coffee…”) that were widely criticized by some observers as racist.
Prior to the 2012 election, Bill Clinton also privately called Obama “incompetent” and said, “Obama doesn’t know how to be President,” and unsuccessfully urged Hillary to run against Obama then.
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If we’re talking in terms of general policy, he’s emotional because he doesn’t want to get into the Levant: The Neverending World War or back into Afghanistan:Where Empires Go to Die. I can’t even tell if we’re in Iraq or out of Iraq now.
The chatter around the refugees and Syria and ISIS/daesh is all incredibly reactive. Let’s make some declaration that we’re not having Syrian refugees in your states (30 US states)! Let’s declare this means the end of US 18 year olds feeling safe from terrorism(Saletan)! Let’s call Rudy Giuliani in to talk about 9/11 again!
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I wonder if the country would be better served if we had a few realists instead of ideologues in washington foreign policy circles.
Instead of admitting that other countries have different values which cannot be changed from outside, and coming up with some sort of a grand compromise that would’ve brought the warring parties at the table to negotiate some sort of a territorial realignment, Obama declared right at the beginning of that red-line fiasco: ‘Assad has to go’. That was such a blunder, in my opinion. How the fuck do you expect a dictator to negotiate the terms of his own demise now? Assad said fuck you and dug in, when maybe, just maybe he would’ve been amenable to some sort of a face-saving compromise earlier (at least that’s what some analysts were saying at that time).
Also, saying that leaders are ‘evil’ or ‘crazy’ is such a lazy thing to do. Good for domestic consumption but utterly useless in terms of pursuing any sort of foreign policy objective.
Dreidel says Obama’s mistake was not putting boots on the ground. I don’t agree with that, but Obama did something that was neither here nor there. Didn’t take military action to topple Assad (which would’ve been a disaster), and at the same time poisoned the well for any diplomatic action by declaring at the outset that Assad must go.
Wtf? Make up your mind!
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“Obama did something that was neither here nor there. Didn’t take military action to topple Assad (which would’ve been a disaster), and at the same time poisoned the well for any diplomatic action by declaring at the outset that Assad must go.
Wtf? Make up your mind!”
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Ha, you made the same point upstream in the comments section.
Sorry, I just barged in with my own hot take without reding the comments1
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Great minds do tend to think alike. 🙂
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Correction:
I didn’t say we should have put “boots on the ground” during the “red line” threat to Syria in 2012. I said (See my post at the top of this thread) that we should have used air power to wipe out Syria’s air force. According to some analysts at the time, this would have weakened Assad’s regime to the point that the moderate resistance fighters (there were still some left then) could have driven Assad from power. Now most of the “moderate resistance” has been killed off, and Putin will assure that Assad isn’t toppled anytime soon.
Concerning “boots on the ground”: ISIS has now grown to the point that a sizable multinational ground force (probably NATO) led by U.S. ground forces is eventually going to have to destroy ISIS in direct combat. This is coming, sooner or later — probably after 2016 with another President (perhaps even Hillary).
If ISIS pulls off another Paris-style attack in Europe or the U.S., the day of reckoning may be moved up.
And I’m not the only one saying this — so are liberal Democrat Diane Feinstein and the Pope.
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“If ISIS pulls off another Paris-style attack in Europe or the U.S., the day of reckoning may be moved up.”
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It will happen again if we don’t take the necessary steps, including direct combat with ground troops, to stop ISIS first.
But unfortunately, it may take another attack before Europe and the U.S. realize that they finally have to act.
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Wouldn’t it be great to have a national debate about the country’s response to a major terrorist attack when there’s no attack? Like now?
There’s really no point in discussing that during or right after something like this happens because there’s just one dominating answer then and everything else gets drowned out in (completely justified) emotional frenzy.
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That’s exactly what I’m saying. This is the worst possible moment to discuss the Syrian refugees quota. Nobody will be rational or calm. I think the subject should be delayed for at least 6 months.
I’m in favor of bringing these 30,000 refugees here. This is a small number that the country can easily absorb. But it’s ridiculous to expect this idea to become very popular at this specific moment.
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Don’t worry, there’s definitely going to be a prolonged national debate about the U.S. response to terrorism between now and next November 8th (election day).
Are you kidding? During an election year in America? Also, there’s no assurance that ISIS is going to allow the world a 6-month break.
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I have a feeling that the esteemed public is already moving on to the Charlie Sheen HIV story. We all have very short attention spans these days.
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Western Europe no longer has the vocabulary or conceptual tools necessary for talking about concepts like “national interest”. It’s gone (who says propaganda doesn’t work?)
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“Oh… “in general”
That’s okay then.”
I was replying to Cliff there.
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An explainer video of the war in Syria from 2011 to 2015
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