Montecresto
DP Veteran
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factless
lets's play where's Waldo
point out the fact:
I doubt Romney would agree to run again, but he would be vastly superior to Rand Paul. My dog would be superior to Rand Paul
I see you've been around here for a long time, so you've no doubt seen plenty of posters who appear to be here for no other reason than to defend US foreign policy, regardless.
That was not a post central to our discussion.
hurry up Jackie. the bandwagon is rolling with or without you
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/o...tting-ready-to-ally-with-hillary-clinton.html
"ISIL" is a different translation of "ISIS." Look, your cheap insults aren't even correct.ISIL is not in the title. Look, your clown show is pathetic.
Um, you were the first person in the thread to make that claim. That's entirely different from saying that we've been arming ISIS, which was the claim made in the OP.As was already stated to your minions:
"ISIS emboldened after US armed its allies in Syria"
That is the claim of substance you have given zero evidence of being false. All the crap about if that ally in Syria is ISIS, or some other group is just obfuscation by apologists that don't want to focus on how we arm terrorists and terrorist sympathizers and have done so for decades.
Well I will confess that I haven't seen all of your posts, so I can't know if you've ever criticised US foreign policy.
But even beyond IS (what they're calling themselves now, just so you'll know.)
You won't acknowledge all the other examples of the US supporting militant Islamist groups, and that we have imbedded ourselves in a centuries old sectarian conflict, not in the middle even, but rather favouring the Sunnis over the Shias.
Completely, isn't a strawman. Bush didn't know the difference between Sunni and Shia, asking, "aren't they all Muslims"
Sure. Wander around and take a gander at me attacking our passive position towards Russia and Iran, or our reactive CT posture. I think I've been critiquing the current plan for Afghanistan since it was announced it at West Point. I'm apoplectic that we would backstab natural allies like the Poles in the hopes that an autocrat like Putin would like us more, and I think that our reactive posture has kept us from driving events, or even shaping them. My biggest critique of our foreign policy is that we do not have one, instead running around reacting to whatever gets' media attention, or potentially threatens to embarrass the current administration.
I have no problem with critique of US foreign policy - I do plenty of it myself. My problem is with deliberately uninformed critique of American foreign policy.
:lol: yeah, the premature declaration of the caliphate is going to come back to bite them - firstly because it ruins any chance of reunification (MMO is the Amir al-Mu'minin, and like the highlander, there can be only one), and secondly because it places a series of restrictions and requirements on them that they will find it incredibly difficult to meet. Sure, it'll rev up the facebook generation, but those guys don't have the staying power to see you through to it.
:shrug: on the contrary - I have described for you actual accurate examples of US support for militants in the region, mostly, agreeably, to contrast them with and point out that they do not include groups such as ISIL. You continue to hold up the fact that we have worked with questionable groups in the past as though it were some kind of evidence that we have worked with ISIL without bothering to study the history of either, even when it has been given to you.
:lamo
I love that you put those two items literally right next to each other, not even realizing you were doing it.
ISIL is not in the title. Look, your clown show is pathetic.
Jack Hays said:What is without evidence is the allegation that the US has been arming ISIS. Those who would make that charge bear the burden of proof. For those who know the allegation is hogwash, life is simple. It is a logical principle that it is impossible to prove a negative. There is no evidence for us to provide because there is no substance to the claim. It is a product of Paul's fevered imagination or his calculated ambition.
It seems your FP criticisms are to do mostly with democratic presidents.
What were you going to say about Bush's lack of knowledge of the sectarian violence and history in the ME?
And you diminish the hypocrisy of US foreign policy in the ME by referring to the militant Islamic groups we have supported as merely questionable. That too produces a credibility problem.
:shrug: most of my time here has been spent during the Obama administration. For most of the Bush years I was at whistlestopper, where I critiqued him as well, though less, because I agreed with him on more. I thought his passive reaction to the Georgian invasion was an absolute travesty and an abandonment of an ally, I thought his border policy was atrocious, I've critiques the Iraq decision-making process (in that it doesn't seem to have existed), Donald Rumsfeld was an awful SecDef, :shrug:
One of the benefits about knowing what you are talking about is that it doesn't require that you depend upon shorthand, like believing whatever a politician who tickle your fancy tells you.
:shrug: I would say it proved disastrous, as we were extremely slow to pivot to the threat of Shia insurgency inside of Baghdad, focusing our worry instead on former regime elements until AQI (who is now IS, though I'm going to keep calling them ISIL, I think) was well past stood-up and the Sadrist response a given.
Not really. For example, the Kurds have received US aid and support. They are also Islamic, and militants (quite so. if you do not believe me, please feel free to push into Peshmerga territory without their permission). The Sons of Iraq also received US aid and support, despite being Islamic and militant. So have the Jordanian and Egyptian militaries, who are by definition militant as well as being Islamic.
Heck, we have Islamic militants in our own military - I've served with several people who were both Muslim and easily as militant as I.
You over-broadly paint in order to try to connect unlike things. We have not ever had a policy of supporting ISIL under any of it's naming conventions.
As I said, I've seen very little of your posting, if you've been a fair and balanced critic of US FP, I'll take your word for it.
The Kurds don't fit the SOP of the radical Islamic groups that we have created, supported, used in some places only to have to fight them in others.
Most egregiously in Syria in the last three years where they have killed christians, attacked UN convoys, gassed civilians, used indiscriminate truck/car bombs, and yet in your estimation they are just questionable.
Before that, AQ which we fought for a decade was used to help us in our abuse of the UN resolution for use of force, to overthrow the Libyan government.
I wouldn't say that. up until about 2005 I tended to defend the 'R' President where he was wrong because I liked him on other issues. Then I got over it. The last 9 years have been a lot easier, intellectually speaking. So I've got my biases (we all do), but I'm not criticising the Democrat foreign policy, I'm criticising Stupid foreign policies. For example, Rand Paul's. Now I'm a fairly conservative fellow - Tea Party supporter, all that. And I like Paul on the size of government, the need to return to a rule of law built around the Constitution, etc. But the isolationist platform is not only naive, it's dangerous.
Actually the Kurds are pretty much the most emblematic of the non-state-actor groups that we have supported.
Iraq's Christians seek refuge with Kurds
Is this another example of your confusing armed groups?
That is incorrect as well. Elements of the Libyan resistance began to form under AAS banners, and many of them flew AQ flags. However, as Jack has pointed out to you, their existence on the ground does not mean that they were the groups getting aid.
Um, you were the first person in the thread to make that claim.
:doh
I really honestly can't provide a better counter to your attempts to make a point in this thread than to quote you on that.
But the isolationist platform is not only naive, it's dangerous.
Um, that is a direct quote from Rand Paul you idiot
The article was edited on June 23 to "accurately portray Sen. Paul's remarks," and this thread was started on June 22. Since the statement at the beginning of the thread is different than the one made in the updated article, that is the claim that everyone's been responding to.
In any case, that updated statement is still wrong. Almost every major rebel faction - including the ones we support - has been fighting ISIS, so we have not been arming their allies.
kudos Rand Paul for cutting through the obfuscations and outright lies.
By making a statement which is factually untrue? "Our arms have unintentionally ended up in their hands" =/= "we have armed them or their allies"
Jack:lamo
The Daily Mail reported yesterday:
A self-selected group of former top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers, declared Tuesday in Washington that a seven-month review of the deadly 2012 terrorist attack has determined that it could have been prevented – if the U.S. hadn’t beenhelping to arm al-Qaeda militias throughout Libya a year earlier.
‘The United States switched sides in the war on terror with what we did in Libya, knowingly facilitating the provision of weapons to known al-Qaeda militias and figures,’ Clare Lopez, a member of the commission and a former CIA officer, told MailOnline.
Benghazi attack could have been prevented if US hadn't 'switched sides in the War on Terror' and allowed $500 MILLION of weapons to reach al-Qaeda militants, reveals damning report | Mail Online
....She blamed the Obama administration for tacitly approving the diversion of half of a $1 billion Qatari arms shipment to al-Qaeda-linked militants.
'Remember, these weapons that came into Benghazi were permitted to enter by our armed forces who were blockading the approaches from air and sea,' Lopez claimed. 'They were permitted to come in. ... [They] knew these weapons were coming in, and that was allowed...
Because it was painfully obvious that you had no idea what you were talking about. As MadLib pointed out to you: ISIL is ISIS.
riiiiight. you have brought nothing but rhetoric and nonsense here. DAIISH or get off the pot.
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