Hillary Clinton talking A LOT of sense on foreign policy

[Lief 🗽]

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/hillary-clinton-failure-to-help-syrian-rebels-led-to-the-rise-of-isis/375832/

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Damn she's gonna be a great president.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Sounds like she'd fit right in with the Bush administration.

[Eraserhead]

The worst.

[they don't love you like i love you]

That is a really great point.

[Indy Texas]

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Ugh, the whole "split the difference" strategy didn't work for LBJ and it's not going to work for HRC.

The Middle East is going to be a big s#%^show with or without us there. But the "without us there" option costs a lot fewer American lives and dollars than the "with us" option does.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I have many qualms about Hillary, but none of them regard foreign policy.

[CountryClassSF]

She really is. I applaud her. RINO establishment is too tepid to criticize Obama on anything these days.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Shocking how willing people are to assume that we'd have known exactly how to support the Syrian rebels without also benefiting the groups that would go on to form ISIS. Or, for that matter, that Hillary Clinton can credibly claim to offer a departure from Obama's foreign policy without recalling her place in the pre-2008 public imagination as a cynical opportunist.

Forgive me for my lack of enthusiasm, but I'm not excited by the prospect of another US President who draws facile comparisons between Islamic extremism and communism, or who shrugs off civilian casualties in the passive voice ("mistakes are made").

More arms for the rebels probably would mean more arms for ISIS. The whole we should have armed the rebels so that the most successful rebel group didn't get too powerful argument is ridiculous.

[GaussLaw]

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Ugh, the whole "split the difference" strategy didn't work for LBJ and it's not going to work for HRC.

The Middle East is going to be a big s#%^show with or without us there. But the "without us there" option costs a lot fewer American lives and dollars than the "with us" option does.

There is so much truth in this statement. 

Also, we can create alternate realities in which 1 different decision produces a vastly different outcome, but they are purely hypothetical.

[IceSpear]

Internet debates on foreign policy are usually amusing. As we all know, you're either a hippie isolationist or a Cheney-esque warmonger. There is literally no middle ground. Ever.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Internet debates on foreign policy are usually amusing. As we all know, you're either a hippie isolationist or a Cheney-esque warmonger. There is literally no middle ground. Ever.

Obama isn't a hippie isolationist, but that isn't warmonger enough for Hillary.

[IceSpear]

Internet debates on foreign policy are usually amusing. As we all know, you're either a hippie isolationist or a Cheney-esque warmonger. There is literally no middle ground. Ever.

Obama isn't a hippie isolationist, but that isn't warmonger enough for Hillary.

As said in the other thread, Obama likely would've handled Syria differently in retrospect. It might not have made things better, but it's doubtful it could've made them worse.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Shrillary's position, and that of the Democratic Party, is that imperialism is okay as long as it's done with a smile Humanitarian interventionism!

[IceSpear]

I never knew there were so many warmongers on the internet. I also didn't know there were so many people that never heard of blowback.

I know Paulbots think that "warmonger" and "anyone to the right of Ron Paul on foreign policy" are synonymous terms, but that's not the case.

[H. Ross Peron]

She is absolutely correct in this regard.

[Deus Naturae]

We trained and supplied Syrian jihadists. Clinton undoubtedly is aware of this which makes it even more disgusting she's pretending to care about this and lying through her teeth.

[TNF]

Clinton continues to be vile human garbage. News at 11.

[TDAS04]

Damn she's gonna be a great president.

[Deus Naturae]

Damn she's gonna be a great president.

Are you being sarcastic? Sorry but I am frankly baffled that any sane person could possibly defend Clinton's statement. It's a fact that we trained and equipped Syrian jihadists, a number of whom have now joined ISIS....and you believe Clinton when she says that if we had been more involved we would've stopped the terrorists and the good guys would've won after all? It's obvious that this warmongering bitch is lying...are you so blinded by your worship of the Democratic Party that you can't see that blatant fact??

[Beet]

Damn she's gonna be a great president.

Are you being sarcastic? Sorry but I am frankly baffled that any sane person could possibly defend Clinton's statement. It's a fact that we trained and equipped Syrian jihadists, a number of whom have now joined ISIS....and you believe Clinton when she says that if we had been more involved we would've stopped the terrorists and the good guys would've won after all? It's obvious that this warmongering bitch is lying...are you so blinded by your worship of the Democratic Party that you can't see that blatant fact??

Have you no regard for the fact that the Free Syrian Army is distinct from ISIS, and is actually the only force that has proven capable of decisively defeating ISIS? You are delusional. A partisan Democrat would take your position and claim that Obama was right not to intervene in Syria. That a large number of Democrats are now admitting that position is false is evidence that some of us actually look at the empirical facts on the ground and are NOT just blind to partisan ideology. In fact, if you will look at my posts from back in 2013, I was opposed to intervention as well. I was afraid of training jihadists as well, that is why I opposed intervention. What has changed since then? Well, the facts on the ground have changed. ISIS has clearly used U.S. non-intervention to gain is own sphere of influence in western Syria, which it then used to take over northern Iraq. Clearly, if Assad had been decisively defeated in 2012, the Free Syrian Army would not have tolerated the likes of ISIS. ISIS is very unpopular in the areas where it rules. To the extent that other militias join it, it is only because they see it as the winning side, and there are tons of Qatari dollars and other petrodollars from shady Saudi princes pouring into their coffers. This could have been checked in 2012, but Obama chose not to.

[Deus Naturae]

Damn she's gonna be a great president.

Are you being sarcastic? Sorry but I am frankly baffled that any sane person could possibly defend Clinton's statement. It's a fact that we trained and equipped Syrian jihadists, a number of whom have now joined ISIS....and you believe Clinton when she says that if we had been more involved we would've stopped the terrorists and the good guys would've won after all? It's obvious that this warmongering bitch is lying...are you so blinded by your worship of the Democratic Party that you can't see that blatant fact??

Have you no regard for the fact that the Free Syrian Army is distinct from ISIS, and is actually the only force that has proven capable of decisively defeating ISIS? You are delusional. A partisan Democrat would take your position and claim that Obama was right not to intervene in Syria. That a large number of Democrats are now admitting that position is false is evidence that some of us actually look at the empirical facts on the ground and are NOT just blind to partisan ideology. In fact, if you will look at my posts from back in 2013, I was opposed to intervention as well. I was afraid of training jihadists as well, that is why I opposed intervention. What has changed since then? Well, the facts on the ground have changed. ISIS has clearly used U.S. non-intervention to gain is own sphere of influence in western Syria, which it then used to take over northern Iraq. Clearly, if Assad had been decisively defeated in 2012, the Free Syrian Army would not have tolerated the likes of ISIS. ISIS is very unpopular in the areas where it rules. To the extent that other militias join it, it is only because they see it as the winning side, and there are tons of Qatari dollars and other petrodollars from shady Saudi princes pouring into their coffers. This could have been checked in 2012, but Obama chose not to.

We did intervene in the conflict though....by training and supplying jihadists who have now joined ISIS. Clinton is undoubtedly aware of this fact, yet she has the gall to claim that if we had intervened further, we wouldn't have armed jihadists and the FSA would've won. She is a blatant liar and her supporters are either ignorant or in denial at this point.

[Beet]

We did intervene in the conflict though....by training and supplying jihadists who have now joined ISIS. Clinton is undoubtedly aware of this fact, yet she has the gall to claim that if we had intervened further, we wouldn't have armed jihadists and the FSA would've won. She is a blatant liar and her supporters are either ignorant or in denial at this point.

Wow. You are sinking low. Surely you must be aware that WorldNetDaily and BeforeItsNews are less credible sources than your everyday Murdoch tabloid. The IBT article doesn't say that the U.S. trained ISIS... it says the U.S. trained some Syrian rebels in Jordan. That's no secret. Then it goes on to speculate that "A USA-ISIS tie-up is plausible, considering the fact how the CIA was responsible for the strengthening of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan." So basically their evidence that the U.S. trained ISIS is to point to the CIA activities in Afghanistan 30 years ago, and imply guilt by association. Sorry.

The people who have been calling for a stronger ing U.S. response in Syria for years now have never said all we need to do is train one or two militia group to go into Syria and get ground up. They've always been saying that we need to provide significant arms and enough aid to get the Free Syrian Army the upper hand in the war. With such equipment they would have eradicated ISIS in early 2014. Even without such equipment they dealt ISIS the most severe blow in its history in January and February 2014, driving them out of huge chunks of Syria, even while fighting Assad's forces at the same time. They've also been massacred by ISIS. To continue to conflate these people with ISIS is an insult.

They're fighting a dictator who responded to peaceful protests, remember, by gunning down people in the street, including his own Alawites in 2011, and has since killed 100,000+ of his own people, likely used chemical weapons to gas thousands of children, has systematically used starvation, deprivation of medical supplies, terrorism of the civilian population, barrel bombs, and blockades to compel his people into submission, and to top it all off is aligned with an anti-American bloc of Russia, Hezbollah, and Iran. For years, people such as myself, have not been strong enough in speaking out against this man, for fear of supporting jihadists. But with the rise of ISIS, this has not only become a moral catastrophe for American foreign  policy, which if we have a shred of compassion left will be seen as our generation's Rwanda 5 years from now, but have become a strategic and military catastrophe as well. Osama bin Laden's dream is finally true that there is a Caliphate in the middle east.

People like Robert Ford, our ambassador to Syria, have been speaking out on this issue for years, and I and many others owe him an apology. The number of people who still have their heads stuck in the sand is unbelievable.

[Blue3]

If we had intervened more strongly in Syria, helping the Free Syrian Army topple Assad, the IS would not be the problem that they are today.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

If we had intervened more strongly in Syria, helping the Free Syrian Army topple Assad, the IS would not be the problem that they are today.

I love the idea that the FSA had any chance of forming a single government. Even if they had been artificially propped up (which would make for fantastic propaganda for both Assad and ISIS) they would have collapsed to either ISIS or Ba'athists.

[free my dawg]

I'd like to reiterate that I'm ready for Bernie.