Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Clinton specifically faulted the U.S. decision to stay on the sidelines of the insurgency against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad as opening the way for the most extreme rebel faction, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
“The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad -- there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle -- the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,” Clinton told the Atlantic.
Clinton is correct - The people of Syria were peacefully protesting and al-Assad sent in this troops in tanks to slaughter them. The death toll in Syria is now approaching 200,000. The world waited, the people begged for help. None of them could understand why Obama sent planes to Libya and ignored the carnage in Syria. When help never came, the militants came - they were already trained in splinter militia groups and ended banding together to be even more brutal that al-Assad.
Clinton, however, suggested in the interview that Obama lacked a strategy for dealing with the jihadist threat.
“Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle,” she said referring to an Obama slogan.
Obama is correct that in the long term - these people need to "help themselves" by establishing a Political structure. Obama shows his lack of understanding, inexperience and naivety by demanding this of a society that has no understanding or experience in self governing. How could he expect a country that has always lived under a brutal Dictatorship to instantly form a Democratic Governing structure?
The military advisors and forced for stability would have provided the help they needed, but Obama's base would never be able to understand that -- they (and he) were too indoctrinated into Military=War.
So he had no interest in a SOFA and left Iraq on it's own to certain failure.
What I call stupid stuff is complaining about all of that without offering an alternative. Iraq has no history of democracy, yes, but the alternative to just helping them to fight the militants is sending in troops. Nobody wants that. There's no good option there.
In terms of what was done with Assad, it wasn't Obama unilaterally acting there. Western countries were all working for a stalemate. No benefit was served by either side winning.
Hildabeast is trying to act presidential and distance herself from Obama given her likely run for office.
The only stupid stuff there is assuming that POTUS dreams up every idea himself and it's not driven by the opinions of a lot of very smart people in Washington.
Well our policies here are relatively un-interventionalist relatively speaking. At least now that we're doing something it isn't a fairly tale like when we invaded the country. The Billary supporters are pretty rabid. I met some at a hotel during her fight against Obama in the primaries and they're a different type. Almost like a cult. They'll be voting for her in 2016 regardless.
It's not often that I agree with Hillary Clinton, but she's absolutely right. President Obama messed this one up. He isn't the first president to make a huge foreign policy mistake and he certainly won't be the last.
With that being said, I think it's fairly obvious that Hillary's recent criticisms of Obama's policies is for political reasons. She's trying to create a distance between herself and the President. It'll be interesting to see if that strategy works.
Imagine what the world would be like if Franklin Roosevelt declared in June, 1942 that America would be leaving Europe no later than December 31, 1943.
Not our country, not our problem. And for d*mn sure not worth the life of an American serviceman or woman. There will be peace in the ME when people in the ME want peace, not before. It's not our job to force them to act like civilized people.
Most people would call it "preparing to run in 2016".
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
