patrick.net

Dan8267 says

komputodo says

who was the last president that wasn't a criminal?

Clinton

Right, the same guy who has amassed 100s of millions in large part by his bitch giving state department ok to sell arms to dubious countries/dictators?

Dan8267 says

followed by Carter

Carter was not a criminal. He was a good, honest and a decent man. Someone you would love to have as a neighbor. As a President, he was a total disaster.

indigenous says

Right, the same guy who has amassed 100s of millions in large part by his bitch giving state department ok to sell arms to dubious countries/dictators?

I think you're thinking of Dick Cheney.

Don't know Cheney's finances, either way they are both crony capitalists, but Clinton is no prize and he IS a criminal of the highest treason.

ThreeBays says

Misquoting Obama... he said it is a serious threat, not the number one threat. Is this from Faux News Egypt?

I don't care

socal2 says

You really don't think America could have sustained 10,000 troops in Iraq in training and peace-keeping mode for another decade? US troops had already completed the hard work, we were just about to enjoy the fruits of their massive sacrifice a

You still believe in santa clause and the easter bunny? So keeping 10k troops in the mid east would make all the difference an area of 100,000 sq miles plus egypt and libya? What a joke. The surge and surge troops were almost all in baghdad or in the area's around baghdad. Falluja where some of the heaviest surge fighting happened is 40 miles from baghdad. Iraq wasn't more stable and peaceful after the surge, The immediate area of baghdad was more stable and peaceful. Depending heavily on who's definition of stable and peaceful you take. Here is a pretty scathing indictment of the surge from a right wing conservative. http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2014/06/10/mosuls-fall-the-inevitable-consequence-of-the-surge/

bob2356 says

Here is a pretty scathing indictment of the surge from a right wing conservative. http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2014/06/10/mosuls-fall-the-inevitable-consequence-of-the-surge/

I like Spengler and read that piece when it came out a year ago. But I think he is way off on this one. All he is basically saying here is that the Surge balanced the power to stop the killing and would fall apart once Obama pulled all troops out.

Well - no shit! Everyone could see that coming. That's why we needed to keep stabilization troops to keep the worst elements in check and buy the moderates some time and breathing room to re-balance the ruling order.

It was simply untenable to believe that small minority sects in Iraq and Syria could brutally rule over the majority forever. Toppling Saddam just accelerated the timeline and was wise to do so before more of the nutters got access to nukes. There would be a reckoning one way or another. I think America had the capacity to help moderate the worst of the killings and score settling and influence new leaders as the old European drawn borders and ruling arrangements in Iraq and Syria came crashing down.

Now despite the massive sacrifice in Iraq, America is basically a bystander as we watch the Region flame-out to genocide, slave auctions and destruction of ancient ruins from antiquity.