I feel that the President’s leadership at times of a tragedy or crises supersedes politics. Beheading those two Americans and sneering at our leaders is a national embarrassment. The emergence of ISIS is a significant failure of our middle eastern policy. The public feels a lot of emotions and we need a President that can emphasize and reflect what the public is feeling. Bill Clinton was exceptional in that ability to gauge and understand the public’s reaction to tragedy or crises. It felt like someone was firmly in charge and somehow we’d get through it.
Obama has always been so detached. It’s unsettling not to have strong leadership. Maybe he did instruct Biden to express anger at the situation. I wanted to hear that same anger and outrage in my President too.
I’ve just been hugely impressed with how Congress cut short their summer recess and have been working feverishly through all hours to come up with a viable plan, since they, and not the President, are the ones who authorize military movement. And how they’ve joined ranks regardless of party affiliation and stood fast with the President so he wasn’t facing verbal attacks from within his own political sphere as well as from the terrorists.
In the last decade or two, putting US troops into a Middle-Eastern nation has made the situation far, far worse, in the long-term – not better. Plus, we then get dead US troops.
I see no reason why this would be any different. I’m not willing to have troops there forever, and if we’re not going to keep them there forever (or near enough), then we can only make things worse. Plus get dead US soldiers.
“We have to do something!” does not have a good track record lately. ISIS is a regional problem, and they’ll never have more than a small percentage of the region behind them, due to the weird specificness of their religious tenets.
If the US really was the most powerful nation in the world, none of this would be happening right now. I say we increase the US sphere of influence in the following ways:
double the defense budget - hell, triple it if necessary
cut all discretionary spending, like schools and medicaid and infrastructure
raise taxes across the board
conscript all the young men and women.
warn all nations, friend of foe, “Our cause is just! If you’re not with us, you’re against us!”
bomb the middle east and anyone opposed into parking lots, then build malls. It’s what America does best.
I, for one, would have been more pleased with Chimpy had he unwound on the golf course and taken some more time before starting his ill-advised war in Iraq. Perhaps getting away from Cheney and Rummy the Dummy for a few hours would have made a difference and he would have called the whole thing off. Well, probably not. But the whole Iraqalypse fiasco was on his watch and Obama pulled the troops out because the Iraqis themselves wouldn’t allow them to stay. Blaming Obama for anything at all in Iraq is just beyond silly.
If you’re upset that Obama plays a round of golf or wears a tan suit I think you’re missing the point. He’s being slow and deliberate when the public wants instant retribution. There is plenty of time to go after ISIS, getting an international coalition together including the Syrians and the Russians and NATO is going to take a little longer and have a more lasting impact than sending some fresh ducks into the shooting gallery instantly.
Obama could have personally kidnapped the ISIS member responsible for the first beheading, then personally beheaded him live on TV, while anthem filled Country Rock blared behind him and American flags waved overhead, and still you’d be on here with something negative about Obama’s actions.
The last thing Obama should do is engage in useless rhetoric that will only escalate the situation.
Oh for fuck’s sake why don’t we just give ISIS a spot in the senate if we are going to let them write our foreign policy?
They are pretty trapped in the region, so they have been asking politely that we send them some Americans to wound and kill and parade around on TV. And their recruiting can only go so far, unless they can convince us to do the single thing that has done more to drive terrorism than anything else-- arming an unpopular and objectively terrible dictator, fomenting generations of resentment, making anti-American extremism a key feature of the inevitable resistance movement, and leaving a nice power vacuum ready to be filled by extremists when the dictator, who is in power only thanks to outside support, finally falls. That’s what extremism capitalized on in the Cold War, and they know this trick pretty well.
Fuuuuuck that. These guys are a band of bandits and foreign adventurers who managed to steal some military equipment and are now playing Lord of the Flies in a war zone while the babysitter is out. They should be treated with no respect and no gravity. They are not worthy of a speech. The more we talk about them as a meaningful enemy, the more powerful they become.
ISIS wants us to invade, just like Al Qaeda wanted us to get involved in a war in a Middle Eastern country. We shouldn’t fulfill the plans and goals of our enemies.
Whenever some tiny terrorist group tries to goad the US into doing something pointless and stupid, legions of Americans step forward to help them. “We have to do something! They’re provoking us!” There are a lot of actions we could take but doing exactly what they want us to do is far from the best choice.
I totally agree. There’s plenty of shame to spread around. Everyone is sitting around with their thumb up their ass while ISIS gets stronger and stronger. We absolutely need to come together. Put politics aside. Congress and the President should be united in formulating a solution to this global problem.
I’m at a loss to explain why our government is so fractured. We can’t even unite over a common enemy? <shrug> I don’t know what else to say.
Everybody knows it except Americans who want to believe the US is near-omnipotent.
It’s the Middle East, and there are almost never good and simple solutions to problems in the Middle East. Assad is horrible, which is why the US looked for ways to support the opposition to him. ISIS is part of that opposition, and they’re horrible, too. Oh, and Al-Maliki is also horrible. Where do you see a good answer to all of this?