JUburton wrote:5 months in: Trump already killed more civilians than Obama in war on ISIS

I hate whataboutism.

it's not necessarily whataboutism. I don't want to speak for Housh, but it's more acknowledgement that our military interventionist foreign policy & the value we place on human life abroad has been consistently bad.

that said, I don't really get the timing of Housh's comments. If we're talking about PR, there were no real domestic humanitarian responses that were this mangled, inept & cruel under his tenure.

Youseff wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:all this president talk is such a circle jerk if you can't admit that Obama and Clinton were also cold-blooded killers and shepards of the status quo

murder in Haiti, Honduras, Syria, and Libya was fine because Obama and Clinton were all class

I'm kinda with you on this. the distinction between mainstream Dem & mainstream GOP foreign policy are fairly similar. that said, the GOP was at the helm and directed all the lying that got us into the Iraq war, which I think is going to ultimately destroy us as a country (similar to the USSR & Afganistan) and Obama seemed marginally more concerned with civilian murder than W & T (no Abu Gharib type scandals & the stats support there has already been more civilian deaths proportionally under T than O). And then of course, the GOP has been beating the drum for war with Iran for ever now, whereas Obama negotiated a nuclear treaty with them.

This idea that Obama was some horrible warmonger and thus we can't criticize Trump and his GOP is just whataboutism of the highest order. Obama was battling an entire force of thought and sometimes failed. Trump willingly goes along with every commonly held notion is now literally blaming 3.4 million people for HIS lack of foresight and response to their humanitarian crisis. I find it incredibly tone deaf to go on in this way and attack people; i'm also annoyed as someone whose spent years upon years on this board advocating smarter foreign policy to simply be thrown in with neocons or with Donald Trump because I don't just throw Obama into a pit of hell but prefer a more nuanced look at what actually happened.

real people are being affected here and i'm thrown a 'but what about the drones you personally enjoyed seeing blow up on people' because i'm upset.

Does anyone know what France's response to St Martin was in comparison to the US' to PR and the Virgin Islands?

pacino wrote:

Youseff wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:all this president talk is such a circle jerk if you can't admit that Obama and Clinton were also cold-blooded killers and shepards of the status quo

murder in Haiti, Honduras, Syria, and Libya was fine because Obama and Clinton were all class

I'm kinda with you on this. the distinction between mainstream Dem & mainstream GOP foreign policy are fairly similar. that said, the GOP was at the helm and directed all the lying that got us into the Iraq war, which I think is going to ultimately destroy us as a country (similar to the USSR & Afganistan) and Obama seemed marginally more concerned with civilian murder than W & T (no Abu Gharib type scandals & the stats support there has already been more civilian deaths proportionally under T than O). And then of course, the GOP has been beating the drum for war with Iran for ever now, whereas Obama negotiated a nuclear treaty with them.

This idea that Obama was some horrible warmonger and thus we can't criticize Trump and his GOP is just whataboutism of the highest order. Obama was battling an entire force of thought and sometimes failed. Trump willingly goes along with every commonly held notion is now literally blaming 3.4 million people for HIS lack of foresight and response to their humanitarian crisis. I find it incredibly tone deaf to go on in this way and attack people; i'm also annoyed as someone whose spent years upon years on this board advocating smarter foreign policy to simply be thrown in with neocons or with Donald Trump because I don't just throw Obama into a pit of hell but prefer a more nuanced look at what actually happened.

real people are being affected here and i'm thrown a 'but what about the drones you personally enjoyed seeing blow up on people' because i'm upset.

Obama expanded the amount of places we're fighting fairly dramatically- wars fought with congressional or international oversight or approval- kept Guantanamo open, sold billions of dollars of weapons to our "allies," killed a 12 year old US citizen in Pakistan, changed the concept of modern war to something which I think has really cruel implications for how aware & engaged we are domestically, facilitated the murder of a foreign leader in Gaddafi to disastrous results, etc. I don't see anyone personally criticizing you, but instead saying, hey maybe the system we have in place is kinda murderous and cruel.

A lot of what Obama did can be traced back to W & his cronies lying to get into Iraq. If we had just removed our troops from Mecca & other religious areas a couple decades ago, and avoided destroying Iraq, Obama perhaps could have been more of a dove, and that Nobel Peace Prize would look a bit less ridiculous.

St Martin was severely hit, France promised immediate aid and to rebuild to withstand future hurricanes, but it's been very slow from a report I read. Many people may not return to the island and have gone to France or Quebec.

Don’t forget that St. Maarten is half Dutch.

Youseff wrote:

pacino wrote:

Youseff wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:all this president talk is such a circle jerk if you can't admit that Obama and Clinton were also cold-blooded killers and shepards of the status quo

murder in Haiti, Honduras, Syria, and Libya was fine because Obama and Clinton were all class

I'm kinda with you on this. the distinction between mainstream Dem & mainstream GOP foreign policy are fairly similar. that said, the GOP was at the helm and directed all the lying that got us into the Iraq war, which I think is going to ultimately destroy us as a country (similar to the USSR & Afganistan) and Obama seemed marginally more concerned with civilian murder than W & T (no Abu Gharib type scandals & the stats support there has already been more civilian deaths proportionally under T than O). And then of course, the GOP has been beating the drum for war with Iran for ever now, whereas Obama negotiated a nuclear treaty with them.

This idea that Obama was some horrible warmonger and thus we can't criticize Trump and his GOP is just whataboutism of the highest order. Obama was battling an entire force of thought and sometimes failed. Trump willingly goes along with every commonly held notion is now literally blaming 3.4 million people for HIS lack of foresight and response to their humanitarian crisis. I find it incredibly tone deaf to go on in this way and attack people; i'm also annoyed as someone whose spent years upon years on this board advocating smarter foreign policy to simply be thrown in with neocons or with Donald Trump because I don't just throw Obama into a pit of hell but prefer a more nuanced look at what actually happened.

real people are being affected here and i'm thrown a 'but what about the drones you personally enjoyed seeing blow up on people' because i'm upset.

Obama expanded the amount of places we're fighting fairly dramatically- wars fought with congressional or international oversight or approval- kept Guantanamo open, sold billions of dollars of weapons to our "allies," killed a 12 year old US citizen in Pakistan, changed the concept of modern war to something which I think has really cruel implications for how aware & engaged we are domestically, facilitated the murder of a foreign leader in Gaddafi to disastrous results, etc. I don't see anyone personally criticizing you, but instead saying, hey maybe the system we have in place is kinda murderous and cruel.

A lot of what Obama did can be traced back to W & his cronies lying to get into Iraq. If we had just removed our troops from Mecca & other religious areas a couple decades ago, and avoided destroying Iraq, Obama perhaps could have been more of a dove, and that Nobel Peace Prize would look a bit less ridiculous.

labelling something a 'circle jerk' delegitimizes it.

i've gone back and forth on the above topics for years, so i'm not going to re-litigate; suffice to say i disagree with how some of it is couched and presented.

I've been discussing a response to a humanitarian disaster on our own soil. one can say 'why don't you discuss responses to other disasters (i have) but we were discussing the matter at hand. it inherently turns into whataboutism if you insert a completely unrelated topic to delegitimize the discussion being held.if there were criticisms of Obama's handling of Sandy raised they'd be a valid whataboutism.

Youseff wrote:

JUburton wrote:5 months in: Trump already killed more civilians than Obama in war on ISIS

I hate whataboutism.

it's not necessarily whataboutism. I don't want to speak for Housh, but it's more acknowledgement that our military interventionist foreign policy & the value we place on human life abroad has been consistently bad.

it's at least whattaboutism's cousin. some sort of 'before you can truly criticize you must first acknowledge...' even though it has nothing to do with what we're talking about at the moment.

sounds similar to the criticism of NFLers kneeling. when is a good time to acknowledge that we have a broken system?

but back to the circle jerk: Trump & all his mouth pieces are saying criticism of his response in PR is criticism of the first responders, which literally no one has done. it's a cowardly response, lacking in any type of leadership. deflections, distractions, etc.

pacino wrote:

Youseff wrote:

pacino wrote:

Youseff wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:all this president talk is such a circle jerk if you can't admit that Obama and Clinton were also cold-blooded killers and shepards of the status quo

murder in Haiti, Honduras, Syria, and Libya was fine because Obama and Clinton were all class

I'm kinda with you on this. the distinction between mainstream Dem & mainstream GOP foreign policy are fairly similar. that said, the GOP was at the helm and directed all the lying that got us into the Iraq war, which I think is going to ultimately destroy us as a country (similar to the USSR & Afganistan) and Obama seemed marginally more concerned with civilian murder than W & T (no Abu Gharib type scandals & the stats support there has already been more civilian deaths proportionally under T than O). And then of course, the GOP has been beating the drum for war with Iran for ever now, whereas Obama negotiated a nuclear treaty with them.

This idea that Obama was some horrible warmonger and thus we can't criticize Trump and his GOP is just whataboutism of the highest order. Obama was battling an entire force of thought and sometimes failed. Trump willingly goes along with every commonly held notion is now literally blaming 3.4 million people for HIS lack of foresight and response to their humanitarian crisis. I find it incredibly tone deaf to go on in this way and attack people; i'm also annoyed as someone whose spent years upon years on this board advocating smarter foreign policy to simply be thrown in with neocons or with Donald Trump because I don't just throw Obama into a pit of hell but prefer a more nuanced look at what actually happened.

real people are being affected here and i'm thrown a 'but what about the drones you personally enjoyed seeing blow up on people' because i'm upset.

Obama expanded the amount of places we're fighting fairly dramatically- wars fought with congressional or international oversight or approval- kept Guantanamo open, sold billions of dollars of weapons to our "allies," killed a 12 year old US citizen in Pakistan, changed the concept of modern war to something which I think has really cruel implications for how aware & engaged we are domestically, facilitated the murder of a foreign leader in Gaddafi to disastrous results, etc. I don't see anyone personally criticizing you, but instead saying, hey maybe the system we have in place is kinda murderous and cruel.

A lot of what Obama did can be traced back to W & his cronies lying to get into Iraq. If we had just removed our troops from Mecca & other religious areas a couple decades ago, and avoided destroying Iraq, Obama perhaps could have been more of a dove, and that Nobel Peace Prize would look a bit less ridiculous.

labelling something a 'circle jerk' delegitimizes it.

i've gone back and forth on the above topics for years, so i'm not going to re-litigate; suffice to say i disagree with how some of it is couched and presented.

I've been discussing a response to a humanitarian disaster on our own soil. one can say 'why don't you discuss responses to other disasters (i have) but we were discussing the matter at hand. it inherently turns into whataboutism if you insert a completely unrelated topic to delegitimize the discussion being held.if there were criticisms of Obama's handling of Sandy raised they'd be a valid whataboutism.

yeah, the interjection into the PR discussion was a bit misaligned & poorly timed but I agree with Housh in general when it comes to Obama's foreign policy legacy especially wrt it's similarity to other US leaders.

Youseff wrote:sounds similar to the criticism of NFLers kneeling. when is a good time to acknowledge that we have a broken system?

i defend your right to take a knee for board criticism of Obama. let's lock profile pics in unity.

it's not that theres not a time for that discussion. its the far left piousness of 'you guys cant even acknowledge [overreaction to obama] then you dont deserve to criticize [someone who is objectively worse]'

especially when i have plenty of obama criticism!

JUburton wrote:especially when i have plenty of obama criticism!

do not criticize my god

JUburton wrote:it's not that theres not a time for that discussion. its the far left piousness of 'you guys cant even acknowledge [overreaction to obama] then you dont deserve to criticize [someone who is objectively worse]'

don't agree that it's pious or an overreaction to O.

I'll take Obama's foreign policy over any other President's of the last 30 years. And it's not even close.

Obama wasn't perfect and if you want to nitpick, you can certainly criticize his policy on illegal immigrants and deportation. He was much too cruel, in my opinion. He deported many more illegal immigrants than the right will give him credit for and the left will admit.

Youseff wrote:

JUburton wrote:it's not that theres not a time for that discussion. its the far left piousness of 'you guys cant even acknowledge [overreaction to obama] then you dont deserve to criticize [someone who is objectively worse]'

don't agree that it's pious or an overreaction to O.

It's a relative overreaction given the horrorshows of GOP power. Trump is killing civilians at like an 8x rate and that's just one example.

I mean, we're generally on the same side here. this is what they waaaaaaaant