Just saw on tv from the Cato institute, Americans killed by citizens from the 7 countries - 0
Americans killed by citizens from UAE, Egypt and SA. - 3,000
1975 - 2015
I gather that you think any support for military intervention is prima facie unreasonable, in any given case, reasonable people can disagree about that. And it's important that someone is making that case, especially if no one else will.
Well you would be wrong.
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Moreover, even if you think it's in any way useful (rather than the transparent attempt at a hit job) look at that map - the dark red countries are Libya, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Pretty sure you could find more than a couple of Democrats who were contemplating intervention in those places as well.
I'm not trying for a 'hit job' on John McCain (what does that even mean on a hockey message board...?) but you're trying to argue something that I believe is pretty well established in political circles.
Your whataboutism regarding democrats isn't particularly informative for me, Joe Lieberman was one of McCain's interventionist running buddies for years.
Just saw on tv from the Cato institute, Americans killed by citizens from the 7 countries - 0
Americans killed by citizens from UAE, Egypt and SA. - 3,000
1975 - 2015
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America's ruling class beginning to distance themselves from Trump and his administration, understanding just how dangerous these decisions are to the status quo they've paid so much to maintain.
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Last year, Charles Koch, the conservative industrialist who leads the network, was sharply critical of Trump's proposal to ban Muslim immigrants from the United States, calling the idea “antithetical to our approach.” He called the suggestion that Trump might require Muslims to register “reminiscent of Nazi Germany.”
Koch did not weigh in on the ban Saturday night as he greeted 550 wealthy donors gathered in a courtyard under stately palm trees at a desert resort here. The 81-year-old billionaire, who pointedly declined to endorse Trump in last year's presidential election, praised the network's work in helping Republicans maintain their majority in the Senate and their support for state officials around the country.
He expressed optimism about what the group will be able to accomplish in the coming year, saying, “We may not have an opportunity again like we have today.”
In the 2018 cycle, the network aims to spend $300 million to $400 million on policy and political campaigns — up from $250 million during the 2016 elections. The money will be spread across a constellation of groups, including Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the Freedom Partners Action Fund, Concerned Veterans for America, the Libre Initiative and Generation Opportunity, which operate under the AFP banner.
This weekend's gathering is the largest since Koch began holding twice-a-year seminars with like-minded donors in 2003. Since then, he and his allies have built a political and policy operation with reach into 36 states.
No one from the Trump administration attended this weekend's conclave. However, five Republican senators made appearances: Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.), David Perdue (Ga.), Ben Sasse (Neb.), Mike Lee (Utah) and James Lankford (Okla.). So are two House members, Jason Chaffetz (Utah) and Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.). And three governors flew in: Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, Arizona’s Doug Ducey and Illinois’s Bruce Rauner.
I actually know someone who lost their husband to an overturned lawn mower, and someone else whose neighbor died on one. Both were the result of mowing a slope sideways instead of going head on.
I don't know anyone who knows someone who died from a terrorist though.
It sounds so far like Trump is doing a good job on following through with his election promises.
Even if you like his policies, how is this a 'good job'? It's clear very little thought has gone into the consequences of these actions, and that appearing to do something is vastly more important to them than actually doing something.
We were doing so well in this thread. It was moving along nicely with lots of updates and banter, and then it comes back to this.
Seriously though?
OP: It's amazing that John McCain is being reasonable.
Me: I don't think John McCain is unreasonable, at least on foreign policy.
Flash: John McCain is a bumbling warmonger! Look at all the countries he's advocated for military intervention in! Look at this map!
Me: I get that he's a hawk, but I don't think he's anything close to a bumbling warmonger. That map tells me nothing. Why was it unreasonable to want to intervene in all of those countries? Maybe he was wrong on some or most, but reasonable people can disagree on those sorts of things.
You: SEMANTICS AGAIN!
Honestly, if that level of nuance and detail is too much for you to handle, just quit now. Stop following politics, and for the love of God, don't vote.
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Originally Posted by Flash Walken
I'm not trying for a 'hit job' on John McCain (what does that even mean on a hockey message board...?) but you're trying to argue something that I believe is pretty well established in political circles.
Your whataboutism regarding democrats isn't particularly informative for me, Joe Lieberman was one of McCain's interventionist running buddies for years.
I may not have been clear, I meant the WaPo article was a bit of a hit job. Who the hell makes a map like that and then legends it with "Salivating"? That's pretty naked in its intentions, they're trying to caricature the guy.
Here, for Jayswin's benefit, is some semantics: "whataboutism" is where someone tries to distract from the issue under discussion by pointing to unrelated, supposedly equally bad acts by the opponents of the person originally being discussed. For example, in response to any of the criticisms leveled at Trump during the campaign, his supporters would often say something like "what about Hillary? She's a criminal". What I was saying is that there were lots of people on both sides of the aisle who were in favour of intervening in Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, which is some evidence that McCain taking that that position doesn't make him some sort of extremist nut.
I mean, if it's that well established that the guy is out of his tree, it should be pretty easy to find a couple of recent examples where he's said "we should send troops here for the following reasons" and those reasons have been clearly bonkers, right? I'm totally prepared to stand corrected, but surely calling the guy a dangerous warmonger requires some good evidence?
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I mean, if it's that well established that the guy is out of his tree, it should be pretty easy to find a couple of recent examples where he's said "we should send troops here for the following reasons" and those reasons have been clearly bonkers, right? I'm totally prepared to stand corrected, but surely calling the guy a dangerous warmonger requires some good evidence?
Yeah, that's basically just a bad joke. Seriously, anywhere where he's actually advocated for intervention and had no arguable reason for doing so?
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Yeah, that's basically just a bad joke. Seriously, anywhere where he's actually advocated for intervention and had no arguable reason for doing so?
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John McCain, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has accused the Obama administration of going soft on Iran’s regional ambitions in pursuit of what he sees as a bad nuclear agreement with Tehran, and has praised “our Arab partners” for intervening in Yemen. “The prospect of radical groups like Iranian-backed Houthi militants” was “more than [U.S. Arab allies] could withstand,” he said. But a large contingent of senior U.S. military officers believes the Saudi-led military operation will fail, and possibly turn into a quagmire.
The fact that the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen was planned and launched independently of the U.S. was, in McCain’s eyes, a rebuke of the administration’s policies. “These countries, led by Saudi Arabia, did not notify us nor seek our coordination or our assistance in this effort,” he said during a March 26 committee hearing, “because they believe we are siding with Iran.”
A senior commander at Central Command (CENTCOM), speaking on condition of anonymity, scoffed at that argument. “The reason the Saudis didn’t inform us of their plans,” he said, “is because they knew we would have told them exactly what we think — that it was a bad idea.”
Military sources said that a number of regional special forces officers and officers at U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) argued strenuously against supporting the Saudi-led intervention because the target of the intervention, the Shia Houthi movement — which has taken over much of Yemen and which Riyadh accuses of being a proxy for Tehran — has been an effective counter to Al-Qaeda.
Michael Horton, a Yemen expert close to a number of officers at SOCOM and a consultant to the U.S. and U.K. governments, picked up on this debate. Within days of the Saudi intervention’s start, he said in an email that he was “confounded” by the intervention, noting that many in SOCOM “favor the Houthis, as they have been successful in rolling back AQ [Al-Qaeda] and now IS [the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL] from a number of Yemeni governorates” — something that hundreds of U.S. drone strikes and large numbers of advisers to Yemen’s military had failed to accomplish.
Later, in a telephone interview, Horton expanded on that. “These constant reports that the Houthis are working for the Iranians are nonsense, but the view is right out of the neocon playbook,” he said. “The Israelis have been touting this line that we lost Yemen to Iran. That’s absurd. The Houthis don’t need Iranian weapons. They have plenty of their own. And they don’t require military training. They’ve been fighting Al-Qaeda since at least 2012, and they’ve been winning. Why are we fighting a movement that’s fighting Al-Qaeda?”
