Despite the detractors, Trump doing well

[Dill]

(07-05-2018, 11:56 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I don't know why you say "one final time." This is the first time you have asked my opinion on the matter. All prior conversations about it have just been whether it is subjectively or objectively good or bad.

As to the matter itself, I have mixed feelings. I think that we needed to show Syria that their behavior won't be tolerated, and working with other countries to do it was necessary. Unilateral actions aren't good like that and just make us appear as a bully. However, I am concerned about the ability to take such an action. I side with Rand Paul and some others with regards to the overuse of the use of force authorization for the War on Terror. It was used by Bush, Obama, and now Trump to justify military actions that it was not intended to justify and I am of the opinion that the executive needs to be reined in with regards to that. So do I give him credit? I don't really assign him credit or blame for this one because I have a rather midland opinion.

The last Syria strike was not really unilateral, and if Macron is to be believed, then Trump was about to pull out of Syria before the strike. Macron and May appear to have lead from behind on this one.

Still Bfine's question is not really framed as a question to evaluate policy, a given military action, or "objectivity" as any social scientist would/should understand the term.  It is framed exclude all the usual measures of "good" policy, reducing a complex order to put the military jets of three countries in the air to a spontaneous individual act, like helping a neighbor fix a flat tire or calling the police to report a robbery. Can't you just say whether that was good or bad?

Since the point of the exercise is to frame the origin of Trump criticism as in the fault/bias of the critics, not in what Trump actually does, all of the quite reasonable qualifications and conditions to your judgment on the Syria strike just show that you, like others, "cannot give Trump credit."  Not even this one time.  See?  Bias!