well according to a former colleague on Facebook, “we need to get in there and DO SOMETHING”. because according to her the embassy attack should be considered an act of war. when I asked her to specify an act of war by whom, she hit me with the ol’ “how many have to die before you think we should act?!”. I wanted to say a hell of a lot more than three but that would have been callous and insensitive.
is it horrible that I un-friended her right after that exchange? I know we’re supposed to be open-minded to the views of others but sometimes I just can’t with the nonsense.
I think that President Obama is indirectly responsible for at least some of what is happening overseas. Specifically, he has been much too quick to tell others, whether domestic people like Shirley Sharrod or Van Jones, or foreign leaders, “it is time for you to go.” This quick instinct to throw others under the bus whether to avoid right wing criticism in America, or to be on the side of populists overseas, has often been short sighted and detrimental. The second issue is that a man cannot make a fetish out of killing people like bin Laden or using drones, without it eventually resulting in a backlash. I think Obama has abandoned what I feel are his basic progessive impulses for political expediency, and now he has to deal with the results.
That said, Romney and Ryan offer nothing but a total acceptance of extreme neocon philosophy that would leave this country in a much worse space than the policy of President Obama which at least recognizes the independent will of the Muslim world.
I would also say that the West is reaping the whirlwind of overthrowing Kaddafi and making his stores of weapons available to people with very bad intentions. The worst case of this is the takeover of Northern Mali by Islamic fundamentalists, amny of whom are not even Malian. It is from those same stores of weapons that the US Consulate in Benghazi was destroyed.
well according to a former colleague on Facebook, “we need to get in there and DO SOMETHING”. because according to her the embassy attack should be considered an act of war. when I asked her to specify an act of war by whom, she hit me with the ol’ “how many have to die before you think we should act?!”. I wanted to say a hell of a lot more than three but that would have been callous and insensitive.
is it horrible that I un-friended her right after that exchange? I know we’re supposed to be open-minded to the views of others but sometimes I just can’t with the nonsense.
I think that President Obama is indirectly responsible for at least some of what is happening overseas. Specifically, he has been much too quick to tell others, whether domestic people like Shirley Sharrod or Van Jones, or foreign leaders, “it is time for you to go.” This quick instinct to throw others under the bus whether to avoid right wing criticism in America, or to be on the side of populists overseas, has often been short sighted and detrimental. The second issue is that a man cannot make a fetish out of killing people like bin Laden or using drones, without it eventually resulting in a backlash. I think Obama has abandoned what I feel are his basic progessive impulses for political expediency, and now he has to deal with the results.
That said, Romney and Ryan offer nothing but a total acceptance of extreme neocon philosophy that would leave this country in a much worse space than the policy of President Obama which at least recognizes the independent will of the Muslim world.
I would also say that the West is reaping the whirlwind of overthrowing Kaddafi and making his stores of weapons available to people with very bad intentions. The worst case of this is the takeover of Northern Mali by Islamic fundamentalists, amny of whom are not even Malian. It is from those same stores of weapons that the US Consulate in Benghazi was destroyed.