1-Sep-13 World View -- U.S. foreign policy in chaos

Discussion of Web Log and Analysis topics from the Generational Dynamics web site.
John
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1-Sep-13 World View -- U.S. foreign policy in chaos

Post by John »

1-Sep-13 World View -- U.S. foreign policy in chaos as Obama reverses himself on Syria

Cassandra, Winston Churchill, and me

** 1-Sep-13 World View -- U.S. foreign policy in chaos as Obama reverses himself on Syria
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e130901



Contents:
President Obama announces major retreat on Syria issue
History's 'Peace in our time' from 1938 repeats itself
Russia's Putin calls the accusations 'utter nonsense'
Winston Churchill, Cassandra and me


Keys:
Generational Dynamics, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Barack Obama,
John Kerry, Afghanistan, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill,
Adolf Hitler, Lord Paddy Ashdown, Truman Doctrine,
Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Russia, Vladimir Putin,
Georgia, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Cassandra

NoOneImportant

Re: 1-Sep-13 World View -- U.S. foreign policy in chaos

Post by NoOneImportant »

At last someone who recognizes the meaning of the name Cassandra - given the gift of prophesy, destined never to be believed. The frustration is immense. To be able to see where we are headed, and to be able to convince no one, only to be vindicated by time, and still to be ignored by those who now believe, must certainly be the ultimate curse.

We are in the midst of a mess that was apparent even before the 2008 election. Candidate Obama was the least suitable candidate for high office since the mid fifties. He had no political management experience; no business management experience, no economic experience of any sort; no foreign political experience; no experience in consensus building; no experience in military matters - other than reviling those who wore the uniform; and no intelligence gathering experience. In short his only experience was in confrontational demand making - demanding monetary, and financial concessions from those who actually worked for a living. In short his strong suit in the 2008 election was reading, and incompetence; both of which he has used to their fullest for five straight years.

He has single-handedly destroyed the U.S. economy - no nation has ever incurred our debt load and ever recovered successfully; undermined the world's 73 year faith in the U.S. dollar as a stable unit of international trade; destroyed the manned U.S. space program; destroyed the U.S. healthcare industry; removed the right of free association from what used to be a free people; used intelligence assets to spy domestically upon a free people; used the most powerful agency in America - the IRS - to beat and punish political adversaries for personal political gain; has removed, world wide, fear of a firm American belief in just retribution for the pursuit of evil in the geographic areas of: the South China Sea, Iran, North Korea, and eastern Europe. He has use the U.S. military repeatedly, and continually, and thus depleted in place military assets without either augmenting, replacing, or retrofitting expended, or worn out assets; he as deployed U.S. military personnel repeatedly year after repeated year - both regular military and reserve units - into combat zones with no end in sight, with no eye to anything but continuing to do in the future what has not worked in the past, or the present. He specifically exposed special operations units to harm by revealing specifically which units conducted which operations exposing them to death and betrayal for his own personal political expediency. He failed to protect American diplomatic missionaries who were under direct attack, and post event, took specific action to hide and obscure the facts of what actions he took, or failed to take while that attack was in progress. He has ignored the lessons of history: "... do not long make war with the same foe, or adversary lest you teach them to defeat you." He has continued with an Attorney general who was found in Contempt of Congress, and has hidden multiple felonies in the form of the illegal export of American firearms into the hands of Mexican criminals who have used those weapons to kill several hundreds of foreign nationals. His personally released birth certificate, regardless of where he was born, is a laughable forgery. His dishonesty is legion, his arrogance is without measure, he recognizes no restraint in the rule of law, and accepts no responsibility for ill outcomes born of stupidity, incompetence, or simple evil intent. His policy, in the final analysis, appears to be: "... I am king, and you aren't..."

While all of the above is incontrovertible, yet this is what America has requested. Not once, but twice - a death wish? Perhaps... yes being Cassandra is a cruel curse to bear - as there is much much more to come in a world with a weak America; he gives somber meaning to the adage: "...beware of what you ask for...." In a world where merit is reviled, incompetence reigns supreme.

at99sy
Posts: 182
Joined: Sat Nov 08, 2008 9:22 am

Re: 1-Sep-13 World View -- U.S. foreign policy in chaos

Post by at99sy »

Assad is no Hitler. A tyrant of course, but lets be rational. He is a sovereign leader being attacked by rebels who want to overthrow the country of Syria. These rebels are made up largely of Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda members looking for a nation state to control. We helped these same people assassinate MQ in Libya and they have destabilized the country and took all of his weapons and transported many of them to Mali where a genocide is taking place. Syria has one of the largest stockpiles of chemical and possibly biological weapons in the region, possibly Saddam's mythic WMD's. My dad always told me to stay out of no-win situations. This fight in Syria has no winner for us. If the Arab states are upset about it let them deal with their own kind.

Making comparisons to Chamberlain is hysterical. Hitler was expanding his borders and threatening neighboring states with aggression. Assad is not and is very aggressively trying to hold onto his own power. I have no love for him or his people but this is not for us to intervene unless the Arab states take the lead with Saudi Arabia out in front. SA has the armed forces to break this up in about 2 hours. Do you really think SA wants the Muslim Brotherhood to take over Syria?
Doubt it. That is why they are doing nothing.They want us to get blamed as always.France is a hell of alot closer to the fire. If they thought it was a good idea they should be the ones to jump ugly without us if it is a matter of "national security."

This is a suckers bet and we have an administration that is completely incompetent.

sy

John
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Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2008 12:10 pm
Location: Cambridge, MA USA
Contact:

Re: 1-Sep-13 World View -- U.S. foreign policy in chaos

Post by John »

You're drilling down into details and not looking at the big picture.
What Hitler and al-Assad have in common is committing psychopathic
atrocities on a large scale, treating the international community
contemptuously, and openly driving the region and the world to a major
war.

gerald
Posts: 1681
Joined: Sat May 02, 2009 10:34 pm

Re: 1-Sep-13 World View -- U.S. foreign policy in chaos

Post by gerald »

NoOneImportant wrote:At last someone who recognizes the meaning of the name Cassandra - given the gift of prophesy, destined never to be believed. The frustration is immense. To be able to see where we are headed, and to be able to convince no one, only to be vindicated by time, and still to be ignored by those who now believe, must certainly be the ultimate curse.

We are in the midst of a mess that was apparent even before the 2008 election. Candidate Obama was the least suitable candidate for high office since the mid fifties. He had no political management experience; no business management experience, no economic experience of any sort; no foreign political experience; no experience in consensus building; no experience in military matters - other than reviling those who wore the uniform; and no intelligence gathering experience. In short his only experience was in confrontational demand making - demanding monetary, and financial concessions from those who actually worked for a living. In short his strong suit in the 2008 election was reading, and incompetence; both of which he has used to their fullest for five straight years.

He has single-handedly destroyed the U.S. economy - no nation has ever incurred our debt load and ever recovered successfully; undermined the world's 73 year faith in the U.S. dollar as a stable unit of international trade; destroyed the manned U.S. space program; destroyed the U.S. healthcare industry; removed the right of free association from what used to be a free people; used intelligence assets to spy domestically upon a free people; used the most powerful agency in America - the IRS - to beat and punish political adversaries for personal political gain; has removed, world wide, fear of a firm American belief in just retribution for the pursuit of evil in the geographic areas of: the South China Sea, Iran, North Korea, and eastern Europe. He has use the U.S. military repeatedly, and continually, and thus depleted in place military assets without either augmenting, replacing, or retrofitting expended, or worn out assets; he as deployed U.S. military personnel repeatedly year after repeated year - both regular military and reserve units - into combat zones with no end in sight, with no eye to anything but continuing to do in the future what has not worked in the past, or the present. He specifically exposed special operations units to harm by revealing specifically which units conducted which operations exposing them to death and betrayal for his own personal political expediency. He failed to protect American diplomatic missionaries who were under direct attack, and post event, took specific action to hide and obscure the facts of what actions he took, or failed to take while that attack was in progress. He has ignored the lessons of history: "... do not long make war with the same foe, or adversary lest you teach them to defeat you." He has continued with an Attorney general who was found in Contempt of Congress, and has hidden multiple felonies in the form of the illegal export of American firearms into the hands of Mexican criminals who have used those weapons to kill several hundreds of foreign nationals. His personally released birth certificate, regardless of where he was born, is a laughable forgery. His dishonesty is legion, his arrogance is without measure, he recognizes no restraint in the rule of law, and accepts no responsibility for ill outcomes born of stupidity, incompetence, or simple evil intent. His policy, in the final analysis, appears to be: "... I am king, and you aren't..."

While all of the above is incontrovertible, yet this is what America has requested. Not once, but twice - a death wish? Perhaps... yes being Cassandra is a cruel curse to bear - as there is much much more to come in a world with a weak America; he gives somber meaning to the adage: "...beware of what you ask for...." In a world where merit is reviled, incompetence reigns supreme.
He appears to be a twist on the "The Manchurian Candidate" with help and the stupidity of many.
-------------------------------
John --- maybe you just see a little, while many are blind.
-------------------------------
Also one must not forget, if properly presented most people would sell themselves into slavery.
------------------------------
And lets also not forget the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcE5aDTszrY

ambience

Re: 1-Sep-13 World View -- U.S. foreign policy in chaos

Post by ambience »

I trust that you have had a chance to read the news I sent yesterday that speaks of
the Syrian rebels faction who admit to launching the poison gas, with photos that
show them loading the projectiles. They also say that Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia
provided it to them, and did so on previous chemical weapons attacks by rebels.
I am not favoring Assad for his criminal activity, but must accept that there are
"bad actors" on both sides. However, Obama must know the truth by now, don't
you think?
Old saying: Watch who has the most to lose and who has the most to gain. And,
why are we arming the same rebel factions who are killing our soldiers in Afghanistan?
Obama is the Chamberlain with regard to the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood.
All the players in this drama are psychopathic and puppets.
There are lots of Cassandras among us, John X. Don't feel alone.

NoOneImportant

Re: 1-Sep-13 World View -- U.S. foreign policy in chaos

Post by NoOneImportant »

"John --- maybe you just see a little, while many are blind."


The above brought to mind the following: a number of years back, a purchasing agent at Emerson Electric had the following hand written quote, in very large letters, on a white board on the wall of his cubicle: "In the valley of the blind the one eyed man is king."

Sy says: "Making comparisons to Chamberlain is hysterical. Hitler was expanding his borders and threatening neighboring states with aggression. Assad is not and is very aggressively trying to hold onto his own power."

Perhaps the difficulty lies in relating specific events - the micro - to the meaning of those events - the macro. As difficult as it may be to grasp, the one does not clearly, or obviously follow from the other. To illustrate: the murder of Archduke Ferdinand in Serbia in 1914 was the passing of a single life. Yet the implications, or meaning of that murder was, in the macro, to eradicate 10s of millions of lives in the first World War - the one result does not clearly, or obviously immediately follow from the other. Everything Sy says is technically correct. But Chamberlain's "Peace in our time." was the culmination of a number of discrete events, not the least of which was the First World War; yet no one of those events was, in context, a cause for war. With the German invasion of Poland, the meaning of those events en-mass, or en-total was to convince the world that German demands would never end. Yet there was very little that differentiated Poland from the Rhineland, Austria, or Czechoslovakia. Taken in the micro there was very little difference between any of them. Taken in the macro everything was different.

Sy's focus is the microcosm, from the micro the macro does not clearly, immediately, or necessarily follow - it is the essence of Generational Dynamics, that a generational reserve of past events - good, and bad - moderate human actions. Prospectively, an America engaged in a Syria allied with Russia, might indirectly encourage an adventuresome China to believe that it can do whatever it chooses in Asia. And while that, perhaps, might be the case, there is virtually no way that the specific events in Syria - from a micro point of view - could ever directly, logically speaking, lead to forecast Chinese adventures in Asia - yet the two are not beyond the realm of the possible. Any micro analysis of events in Syria would never - from a micro perspective - specifically lead to Chinese adventures in Asia. In essence, when focusing on the micro it becomes difficult to see the forest for all the trees in the way.

at99sy
Posts: 182
Joined: Sat Nov 08, 2008 9:22 am

Re: 1-Sep-13 World View -- U.S. foreign policy in chaos

Post by at99sy »

NoOneImportant wrote:"John --- maybe you just see a little, while many are blind."


Sy's focus is the microcosm, from the micro the macro does not clearly, immediately, or necessarily follow - it is the essence of Generational Dynamics, that a generational reserve of past events - good, and bad - moderate human actions. Prospectively, an America engaged in a Syria allied with Russia, might indirectly encourage an adventuresome China to believe that it can do whatever it chooses in Asia. And while that, perhaps, might be the case, there is virtually no way that the specific events in Syria - from a micro point of view - could ever directly, logically speaking, lead to forecast Chinese adventures in Asia - yet the two are not beyond the realm of the possible. Any micro analysis of events in Syria would never - from a micro perspective - specifically lead to Chinese adventures in Asia. In essence, when focusing on the micro it becomes difficult to see the forest for all the trees in the way.
Well stated. Syria could very well become a Franz Ferdinand moment. If and I emphasize the IF here, we get involved. If we stay out of it and force the Arab nations to deal with it I see little escalation. If we get involved then you have unlimited potential for escalation and at the very least catastrophic destabilization and loss of control of literally tons of nasty weapons. Obama wants to back up the very same people who are killing Christians and moderate Muslims in Libya, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Somalia........

Syria is a suckers bet, the first one in loses. In these times as John has correctly stated many times, the honest man is reviled and murderers, thieves and hucksters are worshiped. You cannot trust those in power. "everyone lies" == Dr. House

NoOneImportant

Re: 1-Sep-13 World View -- U.S. foreign policy in chaos

Post by NoOneImportant »

Yep, there are only losers to be found in any Syrian conflict.

What is scary is that Obama, in his unbounded ignorance and arrogance, believes that once the shooting starts he can maintain control of the conflict. He may control American shooting, but he in no way controls what those on the receiving end of American ordnance do in response to those American actions. Obama is boarderline stupid, and downright dangerous, he has no concept of war, or mortal physical conflict. It's the reason that they're called the: "... the dogs of war..."; once loosed no one controls them - this moron has never known existential conflict or war. Once the shooting starts he controls nothing - absolutely nothing.

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