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Posted

OK...I'll play along...didn't "white liberals" also vote for him in, say, Illinois? Is there a problem here?

Well come on now B-C, I find this highly irregular and a titch contradictory for you. Here you are asking a Canadian his opinion of something wholly American all the while maintaining a schtick whereby you vilify other Canadians when they offer their opinions about wholly Americans and these forums.

Aren't you even a little ashamed of this sort of hypocrisy?

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Posted

Well come on now B-C, I find this highly irregular and a titch contradictory for you. Here you are asking a Canadian his opinion of something wholly American all the while maintaining a schtick whereby you vilify other Canadians when they offer their opinions about wholly Americans and these forums.

Aren't you even a little ashamed of this sort of hypocrisy?

:)

Is that a serious question?

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.

--Josh Billings

Posted

She would have made, and still may make one helluva president. I think the Democrats and the American people missed the boat. Yes, a black man was elected president, and even if the rest of Obama's presidency is a bit of downer, that's pretty important,

Close enough to being "black" for a political exercise wherein "race" trumps gender. The practical matters of governance soon eclipsed any euphoria over a Brutha in the White House.

but when I see Clinton in action, it's hard not to see her as having a certain presidential air. Of course, it probably helps that she has the best foreign policy advisor a wedding ring can buy, but still, where Obama seems to be a waffler when push comes to shove, Clinton is a woman of action.

But alas, that very experience and conviction of purpose meant she had baggage...Obama was the consumate politician with little scarring from battles past. The perfect candidate....

I suspect if she had been sitting in the Oval Office, bombs would have been falling on Gaddafi's head weeks ago, and his regime broken before Al Qaeda had a chance to jump into the breach.

No doubt....she had to bite her sharp and sometimes shrill tongue at cabinet meetings.

Economics trumps Virtue. 

 

Posted (edited)

No doubt....she had to bite her sharp and sometimes shrill tongue at cabinet meetings.

All the more in her favor, because I confess I'd probably have been reaching across the table and shaking the President shouting "Bomb the f---er now!"

It's not like Sarkozy and Cameron weren't begging him to do something, and the rebels were asking weeks ago for air support. To my dying day I'll never understand why Obama waited until the rebels were almost beaten before deciding to pull the trigger. To be honest, I've been a bit of an admirer of him, but Obama, unlike GWB, didn't have to build a coalition to go against Gaddafi, he already had one waiting for him.

I think where GWB may have admired Churchill, I think Obama maybe fancies himself a Elizabeth I, who was always a master at doing nothing for the right amount of time, but the Libya fiasco demonstrates he doesn't have the "right amount of time" part down. Now there are real fears that Al Qaeda may be moving into the action, and the West may end up supply weapons to the very f---ing guys we're trying to shoot up elsewhere.

As you can imagine, I'm one frustrated Canadian.

Edited by ToadBrother
Guest American Woman
Posted

She would have made, and still may make one helluva president. I think the Democrats and the American people missed the boat.

A lot of Americans, including me, backed Hillary for the Democratic nomination and thought she would be the best POTUS; I agree that she would make one helluva president and I would have loved to have seen it happen. I was truly disappointed when Obama came out of nowhere and pushed her aside.

Posted (edited)

Does anyone have any misgivings about intent?

We can choose to believe that the triumverate, Canada, the slightly waffling Arabs states, et al are humanitarians trying to "do the right thing"; it's a religious belief, demanding a whopping set of horse blinders, but we can certainly hold faithful to it if we want.

But what if this is incorrect?

Now, I'm not one to dismiss a good outcome because of questionable intentions; the outcome is objectively more important. But I think questionable intentions might make a good outcome less likely.

Edited by bloodyminded

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.

--Josh Billings

Posted (edited)

....As you can imagine, I'm one frustrated Canadian.

Whoa...as you know....this is where we part company. Nobody was preventing Harper, Sarkozy, or Cameron from "bombing Ghadaffi" at the outset. If it doesn't happen because the Americans are taking their sweet ass time, then that is how it will be. American military power is not at the beckon call of NATO do gooders.

Edited by bush_cheney2004

Economics trumps Virtue. 

 

Posted (edited)

Whoa...as you know....this is where we part company. Nobody was preventing Harper, Sarkozy, or Cameron from "bombing Ghadaffi" at the outset. If it doesn't happen because the Americans are taking their sweet ass time, then that is how it will be.

The Brits are decimating their military, the French are... well, the French, and a good chunk of Canada's meaningful military strength is in Afghanistan.

Besides, and you know this better than I, when push comes to shove, everyone looks to the Americans.

Edited by ToadBrother
Guest American Woman
Posted

Whoa...as you know....this is where we part company. Nobody was preventing Harper, Sarkozy, or Cameron from "bombing Ghadaffi" at the outset. If it doesn't happen because the Americans are taking their sweet ass time, then that is how it will be.

Good point.

Posted (edited)

The Brits are decimating their military, the French are... well, the French, and a good chunk of Canada's meaningful military strength is in Afghanistan.

Besides, and you know this better than I, when push comes to shove, everyone looks to the Americans.

I understand your point, but it is this very abdication of a shared military investment and responsibility that leads to American dominance and overbearing influence, for which it will surely be criticized (either way).

BTW, Canada has no strike fighters in Afghanistan.

Edited by bush_cheney2004

Economics trumps Virtue. 

 

Posted

From the OP:

During the Q & A, I talked about the narrowness of foreign policy debate in Washington and the close political kinship between the liberal interventionists of the Democratic Party and the neoconservatives that dominate the GOP. At one point, I said that "liberal interventionists are just ‘kinder, gentler' neocons, and neocons are just liberal interventionists on steroids."

The only important intellectual difference between neoconservatives and liberal interventionists is that the former have disdain for international institutions (which they see as constraints on U.S. power), and the latter see them as a useful way to legitimate American dominance. Both groups extol the virtues of democracy, both groups believe that U.S. power -- and especially its military power -- can be a highly effective tool of statecraft. Both groups are deeply alarmed at the prospect that WMD might be in the hands of anybody but the United States and its closest allies, and both groups think it is America's right and responsibility to fix lots of problems all over the world. Both groups consistently over-estimate how easy it will be to do this, however, which is why each has a propensity to get us involved in conflicts where our vital interests are not engaged and that end up costing a lot more than they initially expect.

So if you're baffled by how Mr. "Change You Can Believe In" morphed into Mr. "More of the Same," you shouldn't really be surprised. George Bush left in disgrace and Barack Obama took his place, but he brought with him a group of foreign policy advisors whose basic world views were not that different from the people they were replacing. I'm not saying their attitudes were identical, but the similarities are probably more important than the areas of disagreement. Most of the U.S. foreign policy establishment has become addicted to empire, it seems, and it doesn't really matter which party happens to be occupying Pennsylvania Avenue.

I mostly agree with this assessment. One of the key differences is that neocons want to use military intervention to further their view of the US national interest and national/international security. It's about taking out dictators and spreading democracy in order to make the US & the world more "secure" (though some "do-gooderism is sprinkled in as well). It's also about maintaining US global dominance.

Liberal interventionists are less concerned with maintaining power and national/international security as they are with humanitarianism. Using the military for purposes of humanitarian intervention, and in the process replacing "inhumane" regimes with "democracies".

However, since liberal interventionism is less concerned with the national interest, this kind of intervention is rare indeed. Realism still dominates foreign policy of virtually every state. This is true of the Libya situation as well. I don't see much "liberal interventionism" within the intentions of the Obama admin and the rest of the West, i see it as a guise to secure optimal interests in the region, to secure oil interests for the state and make happy the oil companies in many different NATO states who fund the gov's political campaigns and lobby the govs, not to mention pleasing the massive military industrial sector in the US and elsewhere.

Obama seems a decent man at heart, but he's also a massive sellout of his own values. You have to be if you run for office of the POTUS for the dems or repubs. He is largely the puppet of his campaign contributors/corporations and must wield to the power of lobby groups who control Washington. He must also deal with certain other realities of office. The name & party of the POTUS may change, but those who truly pull the strings do not.

I also agree that both ideologies are imperialistic. The only key difference is their motivation.

"All generalizations are false, including this one." - Mark Twain

Partisanship is a disease of the intellect.

Posted

A lot of Americans, including me, backed Hillary for the Democratic nomination and thought she would be the best POTUS; I agree that she would make one helluva president and I would have loved to have seen it happen. I was truly disappointed when Obama came out of nowhere and pushed her aside.

The problem I have with this buyer's remorse from the Clinton supporters is that Obama is pretty much running a Clinton - middle of the road centrist agenda as President. Would Hillary have done anything different about the Bank Bailout, Guantanamo, the three wars etc.?

Anybody who believers exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

-- Kenneth Boulding,

1973

Posted

Liberal interventionists are less concerned with maintaining power and national/international security as they are with humanitarianism. Using the military for purposes of humanitarian intervention, and in the process replacing "inhumane" regimes with "democracies".

Does anybody really believe this? Humanitarianism can make a nice excuse for intervention; but there's no way to take it seriously. If the intervention in Libya, for example, is just about humanitarian effort, where is the intervention in Bahrain and Yemen, to stop those dictators from killing demonstrators? In Yemen, the U.S. Government had increased its support for the dictator and refused to condemn the killing of dozens of unarmed demonstrators in a public square.....some humanitarianism?

Anybody who believers exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

-- Kenneth Boulding,

1973

Posted

Perfect example of liberal intervention are the adds being run by The Children's Aid Society. They want you to become "involved with YOUR Childrens Aid...in other words they are running low on buisness and expect more people to secretly call these parasites when they are pissed off at a neighbour. People and liberals should mind their own buisness _Nothing worse than some eccentric feminist liberal bigot bitch - insisting that Islamic woman should be save even against their own will. Liberals have gotten so strong that they are facistic in nature. It is simply not their buisness to believe that they have power over private matters - like - sex - marriage, children and who has authority in private life..It is fine for them to establish a universal matriachy - but they will do what ever it takes to destroy patriarchy. This is worse than any racism...to be bias towards one sex - is very controlling.......The liberal mind believes that IT and the state is the husband and father to all - That is facism. A force with no competative counter part is facism. Liberals imagine that they are entitled to rule...what's next - are they going to enter the bed room and dictate how we have sex? Apparently they hypocrites all ready have.

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