Syria

I'm with you, everything Barack touches, turns to shit.

 

I won't argue the point, IP.

It's that there is no foundational element of trust in this President, in his policies, inactions and leadership.

You cannot hug, negotiate and verbally spar your way out of every foreign policy decision.

He's weak-willed, delusionally naive and the Ruskies are taking tremendous advantage of it.

If everything you espouse to believe about Putin is true - and I do agree with you - then what does it say that such a paper tiger has such little respect for President Obama and his administration, as to have the gall to do this? It's a tough question, and one which I know you won't like, but it's a fair and valid one.

 

When it comes to things like this, perception is reality. The rhetoric at home is so vile towards him, that yes it weakens his stature abroad. Congrats.

 

I won't deny that the perception of him at home doesn't have some affect.

But this is not the reason why Putin has acted like this, IP. It's simply because he knows that President Obama simply won't respond, in kind, or even at all. Putin doesn't give two shits what Americans think, and neither has President Obama, and on any number of things.

These are his own chickens coming home to roost.

 

It's a shit show there. We shouldn't be involved, but Obama has handled the issue rather poorly. The trying to be hard and even stating the line in the sand stuff, even though thankfully we never got intangled into major military involvement gave the Russians a chance to give the appearance of strength.


I think we'd mess this up a lot like Libya

 

Putin gives interviews on 60 Minutes,but doesn't give a shit what Americans think? You sure? This is political theater, and he is playing to the American audience as much as he is to the German, Polish, and Ukrainian ones. I think your personal political views have obscured the picture as to what Putin is doing and why.

 

We haven't not messed one up since WWII. Folks want to play tough guy, but we don't live in that world anymore.

 

Wait, what? American-led sanctions are ravaging his country after his interventions in the Ukraine, so he most certainly gives a shit. IP is right, he's just trying to remain relevant on the international stage, but he's just nipping at the edges. The idea that Obama is scared of what he does is silly. I know Putin represents that last string to the Cold War nostalgia that some hang on to, but he's far less of a player than he is made out to be.

Now, I don't think Obama has been particularly deft in handling the Syria situation, but that was going to be a shit show no matter what decision. There are not many real options over in that part of the world these days.

 

I don't give two shits about playing tough guy. I don't want to be involved any where unless it's a direct tie to national security. If you have to act, drop the damn hammer and come home. No nation building or being the police for the area.

 

Russia is still loaded to the teeth with Nuclear weapons. Putin's a player.

 

I read this and thought you were joking. Were you not?

 

Nope. Go pat some other authoritarian despots on the back while you're at it.

 

Allow me to clarify my post then. I was anticipating a longer stretch before Russia took action against ISIS targets.

 

Okay. I didn't. They're eager to show they've still got a world-class military. They're eager to look like "good guys" after being the bullies in Ukraine.

 

He's my guy. Only man on the board who has the stones to properly address terrorism.

 

Islam has to be reformed from within. Western powers cannot "address" terrorism; it's always a waste of lives and money, takes longer than anticipated, and only inflames passions and leaves power vacuums. Straight from the horse's mouth, it's the ultimate dream of a rank and file ISIS member to die fighting Americans. Why grant their dream?

At the behest of fear and paranoia we allow the most egregious trespasses against civil liberties in order to "protect" us against the specter of terrorism. Meanwhile we can't be bothered to enact any sort of common sense legislation to curb the actual problem of domestic gun violence.

Back to Islam, no one appears capable of handling the situation. On one side you have the aforementioned paranoid war hawks who perpetuate the doomsday narratives in order to keep the military industrial complex thriving. The left on the other hand has been overwhelmed by pseudo-liberals whose chief concern seems to be proving themselves as diametrically opposed as possible to the right by abandoning reason in the contemplation of the tenets of Islam and their consequences.

France is a particularly concerning case study. A not insignificant nationalistic right-wing movement is gaining traction and influencing policies. Many schools have banned hijabs and such headwear. This accomplishes exactly nothing other than furnishing Muslims with yet another grievance. It costs nothing to allow it. In dealing with religious people it's important to realize what fights are necessary. Wear your hijab and keep "In God We Trust" on the money so I can point to those things when I put my foot down on a Muslim wanting to ban alcohol or a Christian advocating for creationism in public schools.

Of course the left is almost as culpable. Either they pretend that Islam is purely a religion of peace or they act as if scripture and culture cannot be questioned regardless of how backwards the resulting morality is. Then you have a kid getting scholarship offers from MIT and the like for disemboweling an alarm clock and placing the entrails in a pencil box. He was praised for his "invention."

It's a tough call, but I have to side with the far left over the extreme right as plugging your ears and doing nothing, while not desirable, is better than actually doing anything that any GOP candidate, other than perhaps Rand Paul, would propose.

 

Islam is over a billion people and many sects, and many shades within those sects. Saying "Islam" needs to be reformed is so broad and general as to be meaningless.

 

It needs to be universally liberalized from within, better? While most Muslims can look at a concept such as Jihad and view it strictly as an internal, personal battle, too many take it and other ideas as a warrant from the creator of the universe to perpetrate violence in the material world.

If 99.9 percent of Christians can today, regardless of denomination, just shrug off the Old Testament as an anachronism, Islam can achieve a similar result seeing as the Bible is just as if not more morally reprehensible than the Qur'an when taken at face value.

For hundreds of years the most venerated Christian patriarchs such as Martin Luther himself openly campaigned for the wholesale torture of heretics, based on a theologically defensible reading of the Bible. What we've seen over time in Christendom is a gradual triumph of secular reasoning and moral philosophy over religious dogma. For example, many Christians actually celebrated the Supreme Court's marriage equality decision as a welcomed propitiation to Yahweh. However dishonest such beliefs are theologically, they represent a wonderful success story of religious liberalization.

Islam can follow the same path. They can treat women better, put aside petty differences among sects, and treat other faiths with more respect.

If you think that's meaningless you're an idiot.

 

I'm not an idiot. I do not believe you are very familiar with Islam or muslims. Many of the things radical Islamists do are actually rooted in pre-Islamic culture that has blended into the religion. Further, hundreds of millions of muslims are indeed quite moderate and analogous to mainstream Christians. It is the poor, the marginalized ethnicities, and the fanatical who are commiting the acts that have come to overshadow the entire religion, or are silently complicit.

If you want to end extremism, you have to fight poverty and hopelessness. If I'm some 15 year old dirt farmer who isn't the first born, what hope do I have in life? The only way for me to get a wife or earn a living is to take up arms and fight with ISIS or Al Qaeda. If I die, so what? I get taken care of in the afterlife.

There is no religious sermon that is going to change that. If there were, it would have already happened considering there are many moderate Imams who have spoken out against violent Jihad.

If you seek out dirt poor and desperate Christian groups, you'll find similar violent behavior (Sudan, for example). It isn't the religion itself that causes these actions, it is the evil that lives within us all when we're desperate and enslaved to a system in which we can't succeed.

 

You don't see how doing half measures is worse than going all in or going all out?