Our President

[RCMerchant]

Lester-I always thought you were an intelligent man. How can you support a man who lies about even the simplest facts? Obama is not an American citizen. Obama wire tapped Trump Tower. Obama Obama Obama. The man is justifying his bulls**t by blasting Obama. The  campaign is over,man. He needs to f**king DO something-beyond bithing about OBAMA!

[RCMerchant]

Lester-I always thought you were an intelligent man. How can you support a man who lies about even the simplest facts? Obama is not an American citizen. Obama wire tapped Trump Tower. Obama Obama Obama. The man is justifying his bulls**t by blasting Obama. The  campaign is over,man. He needs to f**king DO something-beyond bithing about OBAMA!

EDIT-Trump just bombed Syria-the best thing he's done. I'm glad he did that. Now s**t is getting real. This is getting scary. I aint gonna blast Trump no more-this is much more serious than politics. This is war. This is BAD.
This should be interesting. How Trump deals with Russia-his buddy Putin. Looks like a b***h fight! SCARY

[ER]

Respectfully, RC, when you wrote that the FBI and the CIA "say so" about Russian involvement in US elections, I have to mention here, no, the mouthpieces of the agencies, the ones who play politics and owe their high-profile positions to political appointment, they are the ones saying what huge numbers of the rank and files who do the field work do not agree with. Truth, being the daughter of time, may eventually show the situation was completely otherwise. Russia played no significant role in influencing the US election last November.

Just to comment on today's big news, what the US did last night was a tragic error. We are being led around by the nose by being shown images of gassed children, all calculated to bring on an emotion reaction. Were their children gassed there? Very likely since children often die in wars, and ISIS is known to routinely plant women and children in sites where it conducts its affairs, so of course they were probably there to make those who hit them appear evil. But remember, ISIS and groups like it also have a history of importing "victims" and planting them in front of the cameras.  Is it beyond ISIS to gas children and truck them in to the location of Tuesday's attack?

Assad's government is brutal and not by any means "good" but there's no one on this planet with more at stake in fighting ISIS, our mutual enemy, than Assad, and it's as if the lessons of recent history have gone completely unlearned. Namely if you topple secular dictators in the Islamic world, the vacuum is rapidly filled by Islamic militants who make life worse, and seek to bring ruination onto western civilization. You weaken Assad, you strengthen ISIS. Assad has never drowned Christians in cages like ISIS has. Assad has never destroyed ancient sites. Assad has never run over homosexuals with trucks, or put out the eyes of women who learn to read. ISIS has does all that. Assad's government is infinitely preferable and should be backed by the US as the lesser evil. Under Assad Jews and Christians lived in relative peace, women went to school, there was a decent level of prosperity. Where ISIS controls Syria, there is madness and terror and the imposition of a twisted Medieval religious code, written by a man who had sex with a nine-year-old.

Think, people. Which is more likely, Assad got up one morning feeling especially brutal and suddenly decided to go bomb his own people, or that Assad struck at an ISIS target?

Gassing someone to death may be horrible, but why is dying slowly from poison gas that fell from the sky somehow worse than dying slowly from a bomb falling from the sky? The US has a long history of bombing civilians, albeit not with gas, so how can we sit in judgment on someone else?

It's like watching the same mistakes get made again and again as we step back into the same old quicksand, though with much more at stake. Welcome to the Fourth Turning.

[RCMerchant]

You could be right,ER. In this world of bulls**t-it's hard to say what is fact and what is propaganda bulls**t. But  I think being as people who are on the ground there-and its international news-it's true.
The problem is nowadays-for some-no one trusts the news-BECAUSE of the fact that our fearless leader-and Putin-spin bulls**t lies as fact. It muddies the water. You can't believe anything that comes out of Trumps mouth. Or Putons. They spin their own reality. Thats why you listen to the news services. And no-not FOX-which is bulls**t pundits. Or Racheal Meadows or Hardball-I mean just plain news. Thats mostly true.
We like to think were the good guys. The fact is-as far as Syria is concerned-Russia,Isis,Assad and  the USA-are the bad guys-as far as innocent civilians in the middle of power struggles are concerned. No one is innocent.
Did Assad wake up one morning to be brutal?-sure-Hitler killed millions without batting an eyelash. Don't ever underestimate the super powerful's ability to murder . It happens all the time.

[lester1/2jr]

RC-  "I just wanna puke. A TV show guy is in control of WW3."

I actually agree with this first statement of yours now!

The rest is the same stuff again and again and then you change your mind when he bombs a middle eastern country with no evidence.  that always works out so well!

"-Hitler killed millions without batting an eyelash"

and did he ever deny it? no assad has explicitly denied having committed this atrocity and it's totally plausible that he didn't because, as ER points out,  he had no logical reason to.

Hitler, Stalin etc killed millions for their strategic goals however sinister. Assad would gain nothing from, after routing ISIS and closing in on victory in a years long civil war, attracting international attention with an attack of this nature.

more to the point: They told us Saddam threw babies from incubators, Clinton said the factory in Sudan was for making anthrax or something. I can't even remember the last time we went to war over a certifiable act of some kind. it's always this gulf of tonkin stuff.

At any rate ,= would it have hurt to do SOME kind of investigation first ? not to mention HAVING A VOTE as called for in the dang Constitution thats another thing


ER- "Assad's government is brutal and not by any means "good" but there's no one on this planet with more at stake in fighting ISIS, our mutual enemy, than Assad, and it's as if the lessons of recent history have gone completely unlearned."


that pretty much says it all. I remember my local newspaper heralding what we did in Libya. here it is https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2012/07/26/libya-iraq-intervention-against-khadafy-was-model-what-can-right/e6lR8EJDppvoNS2K37vqtI/story.html

look at it now, a total disaster area run by insane jihadist groups. It doesn't matter though because everyone got to feel good for 3 days about "taking out a dictator" like the world was a comic book.

looking at my tv now there was a terror attack in Sweden. Who would everyone guess was responsible?: a person loyal to Bashaer Assad or ISIS? the answer to that is the answer to the question of which entity is a bigger threat to us and the west in general and who we should be stategizing against

Syrian army


ISIS

[RCMerchant]

Lester-yer heart is in the right place. But if you think for one minute that Assad is a good guy-no. Assad and Isis are both evil There is no good vs bad here-its bad vs bad. And Russia is in the middle.
Also-Assad denies it. HAHA HA! And you believe him? REALLY? HAHAHA! Hitler also said that Poland attacked first on the border. That started WWII. Do yer homework.
Should we bomb Syria? Yes-we should take the whole f**king country off the map.

[RCMerchant]

RC- What is an example of something Trump might have done with "the Russians" that would be illegal or even bad? lets say theres a secret tape of Putin and Trump talking. what is the sinister thing that Trump is gonna say. give them our national parks? airlift gold to them or something? Where is the "there" there is all I'm asking

I agree with you about the chaos and I like it too. We needed it. Even Allhallowsday at one point conceded that while he certainly doesn't like trump, he sees that it's DISRUPTIVE.

Trump and his cronies have bank accounts in Russia-tax evasion? Thats why he wont release his returns? He's a gangster maybe?

[lester1/2jr]

"Should we bomb Syria? Yes-we should take the whole f**king country off the map."

yeah exactly because killing 100 people with sarin gas is horrible but killing millions with bombs is good

you know there were no WMD right? and no babies thrown from incubators or gulf of tonkin incident I just want to be sure you get the comparison

[RCMerchant]

Yeah I know-but like our fearless l don't really give a f**k. I mean-It doesnt affect me here in Lawton Michigan-so I don't really care if people die in places I'll never see. f**k em-right? f**k em all,,right?

[RCMerchant]

I just listened to a BBC report of the bombing in Syria. Children were killed. By us. f**k,man.This aint about politics. This is awful. Trump is a tool. By who? I don't know. But it just got evil. Welcome to WW3.

[lester1/2jr]

RC-

"so I don't really care if people die in places I'll never see. f**k em-right? f**k em all,,right"

oh my days. I'll pretend I didn't hear that. (you were being sarcastic right?)

and yes tomahawk missiles tend to do some damage. you can only be so careful

heres what I want to say:

ISIS just drove cars into people in Sweden today, the other day it was westminster I don't need to "prove" that ISIS is a terror group and they are attacking and terrorizing the world do I? I mean, I can it would be fairly easy but we all accept that.

ISIS name stands for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Thats where they are it's a STATE. A lot of the people they catch in like wherever Texas, Germany have gone through there at some point. Assad LIVES right next to them and they are trying to take over his country.  This is sex slave, throw gays from buildings, execution video ISIS. I mean just think about that for a second. compare the two. these are not people we want to HELP in any way.

In 2003 our government shifted us away from the fight against Al Queda by invading Iraq. It's happening again with stuff like this. Assad didn't drive a car into people in Sweden. Assad isn't burning down 1500 year old churches and turning random muslims in LAwton Michigan into psychos with his rhetoric. lets correct the mistakes of 2003 and keep our eye on the ball thats what I want to say

[indianasmith]

This is just deeply troubling.  Before ISIS rose up, Assad was a bad actor, a leading state sponsor of terrorism, and an all-around thug.
ISIS makes him look like the lesser of two evils, and I agree that crushing ISIS must be our priority.
But, at the same time - the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield has been banned for a century.  Letting a head of state use them with impunity is a very dangerous precedent.  Only two have done so in the century since the Great War ended; Saddam Hussein and Bashir Assad.  Saddam hung for it.  I'm reluctant to let Assad go unpunished for crossing a line that even Hitler avoided, and the military seems dead certain that he did it this time. 
It seems to be that there really are very few good guys in Syria, and the ones that were there have either been murdered or have fled for their lives.
Perhaps the best thing for the world and for the West in general would be a long war of attrition that destroyed ISIS or shattered it beyond recovery, and left Assad too weakened to cause mischief for a while.  Who knows?  And who knows if this is not some sort of long game designed to send a warning to Putin, or China, or North Korea?

Or maybe Melania wouldn't put out and Trump just wanted to bomb someone. 

Either way, done is done.  Now we see what comes next.

[lester1/2jr]

RC- if he's evading taxes, the evidence for it certainly wouldn't be on his tax return.  The IRS wouldn't say "oh and by the way you are a gangster and have this off shore scam thing" they would just arrest him.

and they did release one of his tax returns they had it on Rachel Maddow show.

[kakihara]

- again, can anybody explain to me how russia meddled in the election? 

- what about his taxes? Who cares. Its a non-issue. He is rich and gets tax breaks that we dont.  It appears that he paid more taxes than he was required , more than obama, more than clinton, more than bernie. The "bomb-shell" tax reveal on rachel maddow was an epic fail. Nothing.

Syria - that was a warning shot and show of power. As the strikes were ordered, he was in a meeting with chinas president.  The airbase was given notice before the strike, maybe as few as 7 people died. I think trump was dealt a bad hand with this one but he made the right decision. I am worried that we could be pulled onto another neverending conflict. If trump did nothing what would be said about him?  What if syria crosses the " red-line" for the umpteenth time?

- btw- all of the usual war mongers have come out and supported this strike, mccain, pelosi, schumer, clinton etc. By next week they will be condeming the strike.

[Leah]