Quote (ofthevoid @ Aug 27 2021 02:48pm)

We're no longer in an environment where everything is locked and you can only go outside to get groceries or walk your dog. It's been one and a half years. At some point people need to stop using COVID as the gift that keeps on giving and get back to work.

Quote (excellence @ Aug 27 2021 02:24pm)

https://media.patriots.win/post/H61BKLyS.jpeg

according to warren wilhelm jr (D) having a job and paying your rent is a “reich-wing extremist” attack

Quote (ofthevoid @ Aug 27 2021 10:48pm)

We're no longer in an environment where everything is locked and you can only go outside to get groceries or walk your dog. It's been one and a half years. At some point people need to stop using COVID as the gift that keeps on giving and get back to work.

Quote (excellence @ 27 Aug 2021 14:24)

https://media.patriots.win/post/H61BKLyS.jpeg

according to warren wilhelm jr (D) having a job and paying your rent is a “reich-wing extremist” attack

Quote (JohnnyMcCoy @ 27 Aug 2021 12:57)

the libya and syria disasters are on obama, his regime change interventionism to get assad out of office literally created ISIS

Quote (cambovenzi @ 27 Aug 2021 10:17)

The idea that Obama in particular didn't have an interventionist foreign policy is as inaccurate and ridiculous as it gets.

'but he said he wanted out!'
politicians lie.
look at what happened in reality.

Obama significantly ramped up interventionism in numerous countries, including Afghanistan. He also armed and fought on the side of terrorists that continue to plague the region.
Who massively escalated the war in Afghanistan and expanded the mission? What happened in Libya? The genocidal 'war' in Yemen? Iraq War 3? Syria? He even wanted a full scale war on top of all that but was rebuked by the public.
That was all started during the Obama/Biden administration.

They are all complicit in the current situation in various ways and try to pass the blame around. That isn't to say that they all are the same level of warmonger. I do recognize and credit Trump and Biden for negotiating a peace and ostensibly ending the war/occupation.
Biden presumably gets some blame for overseeing a calamitous withdrawal and evacuation after delaying it several months for political reasons and wrongly claiming the Taliban wouldn't retake the country anytime soon.

However he is just some old guy and isn't really running the show.
The various generals and deep state actors are also to blame - Not just the figureheads. Even Bush did not come up with some masterplan himself. They are sold a bill of goods and heavily influenced by people behind the scenes.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Aug 27 2021 12:20pm)

LMAO!

Remember how Trump was a "huge threat to democracy" when he didn't want to accept the rule of law? Now, a prominent Dem says the quiet part out loud and admits that anyone, even the Supreme Court justices, are "right-wing extremists" if they dare to disagree with Dem positions on the issues. :rofl:




Obama did NOT want to intervene in Libya, that one was on the French and Brits. Unsurprisingly, when they tried to wage war in Libya and enforce a no-fly zone (which militarily broke Gaddafi's back), they ran out of jets and ammo after just one week and had to ask the Americans to do the heavy lifting for them.



Obama changing the mission goals in Afghanistan in 2014, from a combat mission to a training mission, was the first step of deescalation which strategically emboldened the Taliban. Since that moment, they knew that the US were getting weary and would eventually pull out. Since that moment, they knew they could sit out the foreign occupation.

Likewise, Obama did not get he US into the war in Yemen and tried to stay out of Libya until the moronic allies France and UK forced his hand, see above.
Of course Obama does bear indirect responsibility for the war in Yemen since his disastrous Iran nuclear deal gave Iran the financial breathing room to wage this proxy war in SA's backyard in the first place, but this does not mean that his contribution to Yemen was interventionist in nature.

Quote (thesnipa @ 27 Aug 2021 19:24)

imo the biggest Obama gaffe was the drastically increased use of Drones. it gave extremists a faceless truly evil enemy to rally troops behind.

understandable in a way given that it severely decreased US troop death tolls while keeping up the pressure on enemies, but holy shit did it guarantee we'd have a perpetual enemy.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Aug 27 2021 12:32pm)

If you think these islamists would ever be anything but a perpetual enemy if only we treated them nicely enough, you haven't been paying attention. ;)

And it's not like there were no civilian casualties before the drone campaign. Remember that Afghan wedding party which was firing salutes into the air with their 60 year old guns, which American pilots interpreted as being attacked, leading to the entire wedding party being bombed into nirvana?


Overall, these drones represent a huge strategic step forward. Being able to surveil or engage enemies and terrorists in hostile places without putting our own troops in harm's way by far outweighs the potentially easier recruiting by terrorists who would have recruited desperate, jaded souls anyway.

Quote (nomadwgk @ Aug 27 2021 07:12am)

Lol sure all Obama. What a tool

Quote (thesnipa @ 27 Aug 2021 19:37)

like any good game of starcraft once the cheese is cleared out its a macro game.

do drone strikes create more or less new combatants? do ISIS, Taliban, etc draw more into their ranks as a result of drone strike campaigns or less?

based on the data ive seen it seems more. infinity may be a reality, but the rate of acceleration into infinity is not constant.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Aug 27 2021 02:00pm)

This war is not about the number of enemy combatants though. The goal is not to 100% defeat and destroy Al Quaeda/Isis/the Taliban, the goal is to cut the head off and destroy their structures and capabilities frequently enough that they cannot conduct big terrorist attacks or topple allied governments. Them recruiting twice as many plebs is worth it if it means that they need to find a new leadership and construct new bases every 6 months.