The American Two Party system

[Dill]

(03-08-2023, 10:29 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Obama sent us into (at least)...
Lybia
Mali
Yemen
Somalia
Syria

He also had a large scale bombing/missile campaign, vastly expanded our drone strike program, and also opened up drone strikes to being used to kill US Citizens. He had US airstrike campaigns going on in about twice as many countries as Bush, and nobody is going to mistake Bush for Gandhi.

That mother of all bombs? First used in combat by... you guessed it, the Obama administration, 14 years after they were made.
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Hmm. I did not "guess" the Obama administration was the first to use the MOAB. Not that who used it first could decide the question of which president was more likely to get us into an unnecessary war; and it is still far short of effect when compared to carpet bombing. But I am just curious about your source. 
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-drops-mother-of-all-bombs-in-afghanistan-marking-weapons-first-use/ 

The U.S. has been supporting the Saudi war in Yemen since 2002 at least. I am not aware that Obama "sent us into Yemen," though he authorized technicians and advisors to control technology transfers from Saudi soil. Obama went into Syria to get ISIS. That's ok, right? Fighting an enemy which had found a way to kill Americans on U.S. soil, in part via the broadcasts of the American citizen he killed with a drone strike. This is not "leftist" foreign policy for sure, but still not an especially good support for a claim that Obama was as or more likely to "initiate" wars than Trump, or put the country at a similar level of war risk. E.g., leading a coalition of European and GCC countries to protect against a civilian massacre in Libya doesn't move the needle in Obama's direction much either.

Also there is a question of the standards by which one judges "initiation" of war and actual WAR MONGERING. I don't say Trump initiated a war in Syria or did something evil and war mongery by following up the Obama campaign against ISIS (though his announcement of Al Baghdadi's death was clumsy and tasteless).

What bothers me are Trump's wholly unnecessary risks and provocations--like reneging on the Iran Deal and sending carrier fleets to the gulf to brush against Iranian air space and coastal waters and killing an Iranian government official. Iran just doesn't realize that it's ok for the U.S. to have military bases in the country right next door to it. 

Where Obama's efforts were to defend and maintain an international system (ostensibly) based on rule of law, Trump's policies continually put that system at risk, along with the alliances required to maintain it, while giving cover to autocrats like Putin and MBS, among others. The "other side" in the current global contest over what kind of international system we are to have going forward. 

Hollo is quite right to call attention to Trump's "unpredictability." Some right wingers have claimed that is an advantage because bad actors don't really know what Trump will do, so it is a "strength." That strength so backfired when Milley had to call his Chinese counterpart to assure him Trump was not planning a strike in the South China Sea during an election year. The "unpredictability" argument just signals lack of foreign policy knowledge, and especially the kind of consistency with our allies as well as adversaries that implementation requires. People saying that don't see the tertiary effects of pulling out of the Iran Deal or the TPP or elevating Kim from his international pariah status, or the hits to our credibility as a negotiating partner. Iran is now weeks away from break out, 6 East asian countries were left weakened before China's Belt and Road pressure, and Kim is visiting foreign capitals regularly now and showcasing his style at international events like the Asian games. Saudis know if Trump is back in office, they'll have friend regardless of human rights violations. That much IS predictable.

(03-08-2023, 10:29 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: - - - - - -
As I said, I would never and will never vote for Trump, and I sure would love it if he could just be absolutely destroyed in the primaries so he can slink off into obscurity for the rest of his life (he's 76, it can't be THAT long, right? RIGHT? Lol) and let the rest of US politics move on from him and his people. I will give him credit for this one very specific topic, though, regardless of if he intended for it or stumbled into it. Rhetoric aside and looking at results, he was our least warring President in 40 years.

The US withdrawal from Afghanistan was both negotiated and initiated by the Trump administration. When Biden was sworn in, we were already down to 2,500 troops there with a deadline already made for full withdrawal. 

With you right up to the bolded, Len. But I'd say TRUMP was certainly the president of the last 40 years MOST LIKELY to get us into war. We came so close to it in the Gulf at least twice that I can think of. That we didn't get into a terrible war with Iran says more about Iran's restraint than Trump's. And if re-elected, he will be choosing military advisors more like Flynn than Mattis and Kelly, who constantly challenged his impulse to provoke Iran and China, while he defended MSB and Putin.

Sure Trump wanted to pull out from Afghanistan--so badly he "negotiated with terrorists" and excluded our ally, the A-stan gov.; let 5,000 out of prison; and fixed an impossible deadline to safely meet. No special reason to believe this establishes anything but Trump's animus toward "globalism" and sense that allies are just freeriding on U.S. protection. Not a desire for peaceful internationalism.