The President Obama Thread - Part 5

[SV Fan]

Libya says differently

How much did that war cost again? If all our wars cost what Libya cost, we wouldn't be so much in debt

 

[Thundercrack85]

Libya wasn't a stupid war. It got rid of Gaddafi. Saved thousands, if not millions of lives. Got the US some good will in the Maghreb. And now oil is flowing back into the West. Everyone won. Well except Gaddafi and the homicidal maniacs who fought for him obviously.

If it wasn't for Benghazi, it would be an unmitigated success.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Yes because violating the sovereignty of Libya and installing a government with IMF laden debt thus screwing over the people of Libya in the future economically is such a great thing to do.

 

[Thundercrack85]

You have to be joking. Sovereignty? It was a dictatorship run by a man who was openly at war with his own people, murdering them by the thousands.

 

[enterthemadness]

We have become far too apathetic as a nation.

A tea kettle that someone with too much time on their hands, a desire for attention, and a pathological need to find something to be faux-offended by thinks looks like Hitler raises a public outcry, but the NSA stealing private phone records....meh.

I care, it's why I vote 3rd party. Even the GOP doesn't care, I just heard some GOpers are happy and agree with Obama.

Guess what? I don't think a 3rd party is gonna break 3 million votes in 2016. And I have pretty much no faith in the GOP or Dem's. Might as well let companies run America, I'm tired of both parties so much. Bunch of wankers.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Well c'mon, you can't champion the Patriot act and then go off on Obama for listening to some phone conversations. That would just be the height of hypocrisy.

 

[Frodo]

I care, it's why I vote 3rd party. Even the GOP doesn't care, I just heard some GOpers are happy and agree with Obama.
QUOTE]

At least those GOpers are consistant. When the Bush administration starting the ball rolling on these type of polices post 9/11 , they all seemed to support it, in addition to many of the same members of the press who are complaining about Governments plan now.

Ron Paul was basically one of the few GOpers who raised questions about it at the time and even then he was consider a "Kook" along with anyone else who was worried about government over reach.

Unfortunately many in the press only really seemed to give a damn about it years and years later once the whole AP story broke. They're a day late and a dollar short .

 

[Thundercrack85]

The press is completely and utterly useless.

 

[hippie_hunter]

You have to be joking. Sovereignty? It was a dictatorship run by a man who was openly at war with his own people, murdering them by the thousands.

Even with a dictatorship you don't violate the sovereignty of another nation. Period. With your logic, we can just go in and take out North Korea and Iran without consequence. With your logic, Iraq is totally justified because Saddam Hussein was openly at war with his own people many times and murdered them by the thousands. And with sovereignty comes the monopoly on violence, which gives the state legitimate use of force to uphold order within society. And considering that Gaddafi kept his army intentionally weak because he feared an army coup, the rebels would have overthrown him without Western intervention.

No, this goes beyond just getting rid of a vile man. If this were the case, we'd be in Syria right now. No, this is where the West intervened to protect their own economic interests in an oil rich nation and get rid of a leader who went up against the economic interests, Western dominated financial organizations like the World Bank and IMF, and Western multinational corporations. Was he a good man? **** no! He was a brutal tyrant who used Libya's oil wealth to enrich himself, his family, and his allies, and anyone who tries to defend him as some kind of Robin Hood-esque figure is naive and fooling themselves. But people who think that we went into Libya for "humanitarian" purposes is just as equally naive.

And last time I checked, you need Congressional approval for major military operations like Libya, which Obama didn't even bother to do. At least Bush had Congressional approval for his ******** war in Iraq. Anyone who complains about Iraq has no right to complain about Libya because in the end, they're the exact same damn thing. The only difference is that Libya was far better organized than the cluster**** of a mess that was Iraq.

 

[Shazam]

And once again how does this compare to Watergate, which was a case of the white house spying on it's political opponents? You probably would be better served comparing the recent story of the NSA looking at phone records to Watergate then Benghazi(but the people on the Republican side have used the "worse then Watergate" claim so often they practically turned it into a joke)

[YT]F0tkKrMs8Gs[/YT]

Because the cover-up excuses are the same!

It's worse because an innocent man still sits in jail for a video and 4 Americans are dead and not one person has been held accountable.

You can talk around that if you like. But that's the truth and the direct answer.

 

[Shazam]

Pretty much sums up my entire disdain for the American left. While the GOP base has been getting intellectually dumber, the Democratic base has just completely abandoned their principles just because Obama is their guy.

Hey...he got a Nobel Peace prize 2 wks into office......AND ACCEPTED IT!!!
That told me everything...

 

[Schlosser85]

The Nobel Peace Prize was ridiculous.

But considering Yasser Arafat also got one, it's meaningless and a joke anyway.

 

[Kelly]

even with a dictatorship you don't violate the sovereignty of another nation. Period. With your logic, we can just go in and take out north korea and iran without consequence. With your logic, iraq is totally justified because saddam hussein was openly at war with his own people many times and murdered them by the thousands. And with sovereignty comes the monopoly on violence, which gives the state legitimate use of force to uphold order within society. And considering that gaddafi kept his army intentionally weak because he feared an army coup, the rebels would have overthrown him without western intervention.

No, this goes beyond just getting rid of a vile man. If this were the case, we'd be in syria right now. No, this is where the west intervened to protect their own economic interests in an oil rich nation and get rid of a leader who went up against the economic interests, western dominated financial organizations like the world bank and imf, and western multinational corporations. Was he a good man? **** no! He was a brutal tyrant who used libya's oil wealth to enrich himself, his family, and his allies, and anyone who tries to defend him as some kind of robin hood-esque figure is naive and fooling themselves. But people who think that we went into libya for "humanitarian" purposes is just as equally naive.

And last time i checked, you need congressional approval for major military operations like libya, which obama didn't even bother to do. At least bush had congressional approval for his ******** war in iraq. anyone who complains about iraq has no right to complain about libya because in the end, they're the exact same damn thing. The only difference is that libya was far better organized than the cluster**** of a mess that was iraq.

bingo....

 

[SV Fan]

Because the cover-up excuses are the same!

I don't see any cover up excuses, but for the sake of argument let's say there was how exactly does that = 4 people dieing. If their wasn't this hypothetical coverup would we be able somehow go back in time and revive those 4 people? The whole "worse then Watergate, but 4 people died" line is ridiculous. Going by death count can I say 9-11 is worse then Watergate and close to 3000 people died?

Benghazi was a screwup but you know how many other embasseys have been attacked and how many people died in those cases? Why is Benghazi any worse.

Beyond that I think the vid I posted of Jon Stewart brings up a good point, why don't we investigate the fact that Congress denied the Security department money that could have been used to protect a place like Benghazi. Was their any political agenda behind that? Of coarse that would be a futile investigation that will never happen because the people who are chairing these investigations are the ones who voted for NO money to protect our embassies so it's much easier to attack somebody about talking points on a Sunday show who had absolutely nothing to do with.

The only difference is that Libya was far better organized than the cluster**** of a mess that was Iraq.

Iraq was a war based on US pushing for it, while in the case of Libya the US was more of a passenger in a war that was going to happen one way or another

 

[Webfoot Hero]

You know it's bad when a Democratic president loses even the New York Times' editorial board.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/o...ragnet.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&pagewanted=all&

“Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it,” writes the Times editorial board. “There is every reason to believe the federal government has been collecting every bit of information about every American’s phone calls except the words actually exchanged in those calls …. Essentially, the administration is saying that without any individual suspicion of wrongdoing, the government is allowed to know who Americans are calling every time they make a phone call, for how long they talk and from where.”

The Times editorial board noted, “The administration has now lost all credibility.”

 

[Frodo]

You know it's bad when a Democratic president loses even the New York Times' editorial board.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/o...ragnet.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&pagewanted=all&

I think a lot of liberals in the press felt betrayed by obama with the whole whole AP thing. They supported and worshipped him going back to the primaries and now that he's shown he is willing to turn on them, they now wanna hold him accountable.

 

[SV Fan]

I think a lot of liberals in the press felt betrayed by obama with the whole whole AP thing. They supported and worshipped him going back to the primaries and now that he's shown he is willing to turn on them, they now wanna hold him accountable.

I personally think the AP and this whole NSA scandal are the ones that it's easiest to link to Obama and people could have a legitimate gripe against the whitehouse, not sure why so much effort is being put into the IRS(and Bengazi) scandal(s)

 

[Frodo]

I personally think the AP and this whole NSA scandal are the ones that it's easiest to link to Obama and people could have a legitimate gripe against the whitehouse, not sure why so much effort is being put into the IRS(and Bengazi) scandal(s)

I think because the IRS scandal may be easier for the General Public to be outraged about than the whole AP and NSA stuff. When it comes to national security in this post 9/11 world , I think alot of Americans are more willing to give the Federal Governmnet lee way to go to extremes in the name of security.

From the media's pov , Its alot harder to convince people their government is going too far in those type of matters than it is with situations like the IRS . Additionally ,most of people don't know even know what the AP is, and they don't really like/trust journalists anyway so the press has a harder time getting joe public to see things their way on that issue.

I think the Bengazi issue which has gotten alot of play in the beltway press core, but is kinda of muddle as far as most Americans are concerned. The issue suffers from the "Its happened over there , why should I care" syndrome as it relates to most non political junkies.

 

[Thundercrack85]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_Wind_(code_name)

This bit did make me chuckle:

During the Bush Administration, the Stellar Wind cases were referred to by FBI agents as "pizza cases" because many seemingly suspicious cases turned out to be food takeout orders.

I wonder if America will ever recover from 9/11.

 

[SV Fan]

I think because the IRS scandal may be easier for the General Public to be outraged about than the whole AP and NSA stuff. When it comes to national security in this post 9/11 world , I think alot of Americans are more willing to give the Federal Governmnet lee way to go to extremes in the name of security.

I just think at the end of the day their isn't going to be any links between Obama and the IRS and then you look like fools trying to pin the issue on him. If you want to go after the IRS more power to you but make it an IRS issue and not an Obama one. In the case of the AP scandal as I said that is your best bet to try pin something negative on Obama

 

[Destructus86]

One thing I noticed about Obama is that he is VERY Good at silencing negative opinion about himself. Spin it with charisma or say you had no idea what was going on and people buy it so easily.

 

[Destructus86]

As a Brit, my thought on Obama is that you guys are really really lucky to have him. You don't even realise how lucky you are. Look around the world right now. Look at Turkey. You're lucky to have Obama and he's far and away better than the last president you had. If he was British and ran here next election, he'd win with a landslide, no question.

Yes. I'm very glad to have a president that consistantly tramples on the rights of the people he is sworn to serve.

 

[Victarion]

It is President Obama's responsibility to know about what's going on BEFORE we do. Interesting that the latest scandal was something that was started in 07 on Bush's watch...

 

[Frodo]

I just think at the end of the day their isn't going to be any links between Obama and the IRS and then you look like fools trying to pin the issue on him. If you want to go after the IRS more power to you but make it an IRS issue and not an Obama one. In the case of the AP scandal as I said that is your best bet to try pin something negative on Obama

True. The President is far removed in terms of actually being able to tell the IRS what you do, that its near impossible to find any proof Obama signed off on anything. Politically though Americans understand being unfairly targeted by the IRS, but they don't associate it with Obama with being involved.

 

[Destructus86]

Let's not forget...Obama is actually defending the NSA betrayal of the American peoples trust. What kind of President is that?