[worry]

http://tv.msnbc.com/...ull-of-racists/

[Terez]

Dear world,

If a Republican is going to win this time, can we please have John McCain back?

Thanks.

[worry]

I dunno about that. Old angry bitter John McCain ain't so great. He just blamed the entire Iraq War on Colin Powell, for instance.

Anyway, just a little fun here for the boys and girls before Halloween.

[Terez]

I didn't say he was great; I would just very much prefer him to Romney, that's all.

[worry]

Indeed, indeed. Luckily neither will be president, so we don't have to choose!

[Obdigore]

Romney saying FEMA should be state-based only:
http://www.youtube.c...d&v=oqXk5XxHKx8

And 80 CEOs plan for the country > 1's, right?
http://www.cnn.com/2....html?hpt=hp_c2

[Pig Iron]

Joss Whedon on Romney, nice (sorry if posted already):




Previous page! Never too much of a good thing, eh Drek?

This post has been edited by Pig Iron: 29 October 2012 - 04:52 PM

[Vengeance]

A nice little article that breaks down how Romney is basing his economic data critic of Obama.


Cherry Picking

[Terez]

I was reading over recent discussions in the thread, and I wanted to go back to this post:

HoosierDaddy, on 25 October 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

By the by, drone attacks are highly favorable outside of the very liberal left. No troops, no death of Americans, killing enemies (and collateral damage)? Highly popular. Considering the majority of Americans feel the alternative were TWO WARS in the Middle East, despite the civilian deaths, drones are highly preferred.

I have been hanging out in the general public of comments sections recently, and I'm not so sure this is true any more. The seriously Obama-hating people are in this weird position where they feel the need to hate everything that Obama does, even if they liked it when Bush did it. In some cases, they just pretend that Obama isn't doing these things that they like, but in some cases they are successful in finding reasons to hate those things. So, I have noticed a lot of Obama-haters making familiar left-wing arguments against things like drone strikes. And I've seen some liberals making familiar right-wing arguments in support of them, liberals who might have argued differently four years ago.

[HoosierDaddy]

Terez, on 29 October 2012 - 04:28 PM, said:

I was reading over recent discussions in the thread, and I wanted to go back to this post:

HoosierDaddy, on 25 October 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

By the by, drone attacks are highly favorable outside of the very liberal left. No troops, no death of Americans, killing enemies (and collateral damage)? Highly popular. Considering the majority of Americans feel the alternative were TWO WARS in the Middle East, despite the civilian deaths, drones are highly preferred.

I have been hanging out in the general public of comments sections recently, and I'm not so sure this is true any more. The seriously Obama-hating people are in this weird position where they feel the need to hate everything that Obama does, even if they liked it when Bush did it. In some cases, they just pretend that Obama isn't doing these things that they like, but in some cases they are successful in finding reasons to hate those things. So, I have noticed a lot of Obama-haters making familiar left-wing arguments against things like drone strikes. And I've seen some liberals making familiar right-wing arguments in support of them, liberals who might have argued differently four years ago.

Haters gonna hate.

But seriously, there's no way to win in that scenario. Give them the alternative rather than a solo target and see what they choose and I guarantee most of them would say drone strikes.

[amphibian]

HoosierDaddy, on 29 October 2012 - 04:50 PM, said:

But seriously, there's no way to win in that scenario. Give them the alternative rather than a solo target and see what they choose and I guarantee most of them would say drone strikes.

Bush/Cheney was the administration that geared up the DoD into the drone era. Obama/Biden greatly increased the usage of such strikes and expanded the scope from Afghanistan/Pakistan to even further into Pakistan and places like Yemen (where the targets shifted a bit from out and out anti-terrorism to regime stabilization).

Before that, we had the cruise missile/Tomahawk strikes that Clinton/Gore was so fond of using. If we go back a long time ago, we had destroyer artillery barrages and bombing runs. It's a time honored tradition by now, even if the method is slightly innovative.

[Terez]

amphibian, on 29 October 2012 - 06:25 PM, said:

Before that, we had the cruise missile/Tomahawk strikes that Clinton/Gore was so fond of using. If we go back a long time ago, we had destroyer artillery barrages and bombing runs. It's a time honored tradition by now, even if the method is slightly innovative.

I have vague memories of being a pacifist Republican in high school and college because of Clinton and voting for W because he campaigned on non-interventionism in 2000. But by then I had already decided I didn't care about politics. Didn't stop me from showing up on election day, but I didn't start paying attention again until I discovered the internet in 2004. (I didn't really join in the non-WoT discussions until 2005-2006, though.)

[worry]

Well, I think you and HD were both right. In the generic sense, most Americans regardless of party, if surveyed, would prefer unmanned military action over sending soldiers in to a war-zone. Also IMO in the same way people think about Jetsons-level technology, drones just have a sense of futuristic romance, on top of an air of practicality. On the other hand, some of the same people who would support it generically -- and the vast majority of people who would still support it if/because a Republican hawk (like Bush/Cheney) was in office -- are dead set against it because it's Obama. And comments sections are gonna be the bastion of partisan hypocrisies on both sides. Not to get all Frank Luntz-y, but I think you'll get a whole host of opinions, even contradictory ones from the same people, just based on how you phrased the question.

[Gnaw]

Tapper, on 25 October 2012 - 02:53 PM, said:

HoosierDaddy, on 25 October 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

It's an attempt to disqualify the opponent. Romney has no foreign policy experience and Obama wanted to leap on that. Sadly, Romney abandoned previous positions and pretty much mirrored Obama foreign policy, making it hard to distinguish them from each other.

I have no problem belittling an idiotic point if it is necessary. Romney's 2 trillion dollar increase of the Defense budget is worthy of derision of the highest sort.

By the by, drone attacks are highly favorable outside of the very liberal left. No troops, no death of Americans, killing enemies (and collateral damage)? Highly popular. Considering the majority of Americans feel the alternative were TWO WARS in the Middle East, despite the civilian deaths, drones are highly preferred.

Oh, I know that drones are "clean" because most people only care about the bodybags on their own side, which is why the air weapon has been used so often by the West, too, despite the occassional mishits. Even so, a high tech army is probably smaller and cheaper than Romnarmy's

Damn. Flew into this thread to see if anyone had a comment on how/whether Sandy is going to have an effect on the elections.


@Tapper I saw a run down in McClatchey(?) that shows the costs of the drones. They're not nearly as inexpensive as people surmise. It takes around 60 total people in 3 locations to keep one flying. Of course it's up there for 10 hours vs. an jet for 2. But the jet can carry 5x the payload.

• You can't shoot people until they like you. It doesn't work. Sticking a Hellfire up somebody's backside does not make their friends, neighbors, casual bystanders, etc see the dead person in an unfavorable light. It makes them sympathetic. Israel has been shooting missiles at senior leaders of Fatah, Hamas, and Hezbollah for years. Nobody has ran out of missiles, senior leaders, or bloodlust yet. (Well, Sharon seems to have gotten the idea, but then he stroked out.)
• Airplanes can not win wars. They can create favorable conditions, but it still takes a soldier, spear in hand, to occupy the space. Bombers didn't win WWII, bombers certainly didn't win Vietnam or Afghanistan (USSR version), and they cannot win now.
• Drones as strategic weapon are terroristic in nature. Just because we have them and they don't for the moment does not make them any less of a terror weapon. But one man's freedom fighter.....
• Drones as tactical weapon are counter productive. They can't separate the wolves from the sheep. Treating the sheep like wolves is a damn good way to make werewolves. And there are a lot more of them than we have drones.
• As for the the 'popularity' of drones, since the majority of Americans seem to be far more interested in American Idol than in learning anything about warfare, let's just pretend that that's not an issue. Remember, arming mujaheddin to fight communists was a very popular idea back in the 80s. Short term results were pretty good. Long term, not so much.

The blowback from using drones is going to be considerable. Using them in Pakistan is doing EXACTLY what a terrorism campaign is designed to do: make the citizens distrust their government by proving their government is not capable of protecting the citizens. The government tightens security, the terrorists strike again, the citizens grow more distrustful of the government, spiraling downward. The only new twist on this cycle is that, with the drones, the government is even more feeble in protecting the citizens. The only recourse the government has is to try to ferret out possible drone targets before the drone operators do. We're running 150-200 strikes a year inside Pakistan. You do the math.


And all of that is assuming that the government of Pakistan actually wishes to get rid of the Taliban/Al Qaeda types. Since the government is trying to have it both ways and support mujaheddin types in the Kashmir but not on the Afghanistan side that's not a safe assumption.

Counter insurgency is very difficult. Arguably the only successful large scale counter insurgency in the second half of the 20th century, relevant because the unsymmetricality is so stark since 1950, was the British in the Malayan Emergency. Compare that to the French in Indo-China. It takes highly trained, highly motivated troops willing to live with the people and take the casualties that come with that to succeed. The Brits started with cast me offs, ne'er do wells, and a battalion of Gurkhas. They ended with some of the best troops in the world and success. The French started with crack troops, the Foreign Legion, tanks, and bombers. They ended up somewhat less than successful.

What Obama has done with the drones and Pakistan is farm the counter insurgency out to an unmotivated, undertrained troops and then told them "not only are your lives worth less than that of an American, we're going to make your lives cheaper by using bombs to make your job harder."

If I thought there was the slightest chance that R² would do something about the drones, I'd vote for him early and often. But I can't see him doing anything but expanding the program and ignoring the impending blowback.

[HoosierDaddy]

Yet, they are more popular than an all out war.

Would you rather random drone strikes or troops into Pakistan?

No, neither of the above possible. Choose between one of the two.

[Gnaw]

Assuming those were the only two options, then troops.
And, before you ask, I'm a vet. Peacetime, but still a vet. 2 of my nephews served. One a single tour in Iraq, the other 1 in Afghanistan and 3 in Iraq.
My boyhood best friend has had one nephew killed in Iraq and a niece wounded by a car bomb in Baghdad while working for the state separtment.

This post has been edited by Gnaw: 30 October 2012 - 05:52 AM

[Gnaw]

HoosierDaddy, on 30 October 2012 - 05:10 AM, said:

Yet, they are more popular than an all out war.

Would you rather random drone strikes or troops into Pakistan?

No, neither of the above possible. Choose between one of the two.

But why do I have to choose one of two options? Especially since neither option is realistic or good.

[worry]

Yah, I think that's the point though, right? I don't think anyone here is defending the drones on a humanitarian level, or even necessarily the decision to use them (where making that decision could be done in a vacuum, not HD's hypothetical above regarding sentiment on those two options, which would usually be in play if not for Obama's, let's say, differences from the usual). Obama -- as good as he is on most issues -- isn't far off the Republican hawkish mark when it comes to these drones. Which means the reason he's being opposed by the right on this issue -- when Iraq Wars I & II were wholeheartedly embraced, when plenty of comparable attacks to Benghazi occurred under the Bushes and Reagan with by far greater casualties -- has more to do with him being Obama than it does that they care about Pakistani lives or that they're suddenly peaceniks or they wouldn't be doing the same thing in his place. Obama's already under heightened scrutiny and downright suspicion for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, so there's a strategic play to deliberately attack him from the left on this issue to appeal to opportunistic conservatives, over-idealistic lefties looking to nitpick, and the still-"suspicious" chunks of the left and middle.

[HoosierDaddy]

Gnaw, on 30 October 2012 - 05:43 AM, said:

Assuming those were the only two options, then troops.
And, before you ask, I'm a vet. Peacetime, but still a vet. 2 of my nephews served. One a single tour in Iraq, the other 1 in Afghanistan and 3 in Iraq.
My boyhood best friend has had one nephew killed in Iraq and a niece wounded by a car bomb in Baghdad while working for the state separtment.

Congratulations. You are one in very few.

So few, I don't believe it. You'd rather invade Pakistan and risk nuclear war in the Middle East than see civilian casualties. Which would be far greater in an all out war.

As to why you have to choose one of two: Pretending that the War on Terror, which no one has given up on, can continue without incursions into Pakistan is naive.

This post has been edited by HoosierDaddy: 30 October 2012 - 06:00 AM

[HoosierDaddy]

My knickers are in a twist for some reason.

I'm just trying to state that any foreign policy lacking in specifics on Pakistan is going to continue what we are doing. It's such a damned mess there it will take a long time, or a very, very, very short time for it to be righted.