Do Empty Threats Matter?

otisptoadwater wrote: Just for the record, and to pre-empt any liberals thinking that I'm a fan of Hillary - I'm not. IMHO, four more years of Democrats "leading" our nation is a recipe for disaster.

You were probably in trouble for saying Putin was a better leader, too.

Mary Scott wrote: You were probably in trouble for saying Putin was a better leader, too.

I said it an I'm not afraid to admit it; I also said that Putin being a better leader is not a good thing for the citizens of the USA. I don't care if I'm "in trouble" with the liberals for telling the truth, they can watch along with the rest of us as the situation develops. The truth will bear itself out over time and the liberals will continue to deny that a spade is a spade.

Maybe if we hadn't spent a decade fighting 2 unnecessary wars this country and it's citizens would be in a better position to confront Putin. We have neither the money nor the will of the citizens to do anything more than talk. Sad really, to invest so much in the middle east, that we cannot support our allies in the rest of the world.

Putin took our measure over the last 16 years. He knows full well that America has lost its appetite for war , losing so many young men and woman, and bringing home thousands of wounded soldiers, it's convenient to blame Obama, and I don't blame you for doing so, I'm sure it's easier than looking in the mirror and knowing that you.....or at least your republican vote in 2000 set us on the course to where we are today.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In what was described as a major ramping up of sanctions, Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Tuesday that the United States had frozen Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Netflix account, effective immediately.

“Unless and until Mr. Putin calls off the annexation of Crimea, no more ‘House of Cards’ or ‘Orange Is the New Black’ for him,” Mr. Kerry said. “The United States will not stand by and reward the annexation of another sovereign nation with a policy of streaming as usual.”

While all of the sanctions Mr. Kerry announced on Tuesday were Netflix-related, he warned Mr. Putin that “nothing is off the table.”

“I’m sure I don’t need to remind the Russian President that ‘Game of Thrones’ is about to come back for another season,” he said. “As I have said, this thing could get very ugly, very fast.”


http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/b ... entry-more

What vote in 2000?

archer wrote: Maybe if we hadn't spent a decade fighting 2 unnecessary wars this country and it's citizens would be in a better position to confront Putin. We have neither the money nor the will of the citizens to do anything more than talk. Sad really, to invest so much in the middle east, that we cannot support our allies in the rest of the world.

Putin took our measure over the last 16 years. He knows full well that America has lost its appetite for war , losing so many young men and woman, and bringing home thousands of wounded soldiers, it's convenient to blame Obama, and I don't blame you for doing so, I'm sure it's easier than looking in the mirror and knowing that you.....or at least your republican vote in 2000 set us on the course to where we are today.

archer wrote: Maybe if we hadn't spent a decade fighting 2 unnecessary wars this country and it's citizens would be in a better position to confront Putin. We have neither the money nor the will of the citizens to do anything more than talk. Sad really, to invest so much in the middle east, that we cannot support our allies in the rest of the world.

Putin took our measure over the last 16 years. He knows full well that America has lost its appetite for war , losing so many young men and woman, and bringing home thousands of wounded soldiers, it's convenient to blame Obama, and I don't blame you for doing so, I'm sure it's easier than looking in the mirror and knowing that you.....or at least your republican vote in 2000 set us on the course to where we are today.

Your hero Barack Obama said Afghanistan was the good war. Is he wrong about this? He even approved a surge/increase in troops and material to help win.

archer wrote: Maybe if we hadn't spent a decade fighting 2 unnecessary wars this country and it's citizens would be in a better position to confront Putin. We have neither the money nor the will of the citizens to do anything more than talk. Sad really, to invest so much in the middle east, that we cannot support our allies in the rest of the world.

Putin took our measure over the last 16 years. He knows full well that America has lost its appetite for war , losing so many young men and woman, and bringing home thousands of wounded soldiers, it's convenient to blame Obama, and I don't blame you for doing so, I'm sure it's easier than looking in the mirror and knowing that you.....or at least your republican vote in 2000 set us on the course to where we are today.

Once again it's Bush's fault. Bullcrap. This country should ALWAYS be ready to fight a war. Obama refusing to continue with the missile defense system in Poland. Obama and Hegel making plans to cut our troop levels down to pre-WWII levels. Obama spending more time trying to social-engineer our arm forces instead of letting them spend the time they need to prepare killing machines.

Obama using arm services budgets for political gains. The left in general diminishing our roll in the world and trying to inculcate a feeling in this country that we are not number one?

I could go on and on, but you need to pay attention to the general attitude that the left has toward our strength and power and pay particular attention to what Obama has done, on his own, without the help or support of conservatives to our military and our sense of strength.

So Bush's war were unnecessary. Probably. Does that mean we stop being prepared? In your little leftist world maybe, but not in the reality of this world.

"Countries in the 21st century should not be acting like a 19th century country." Nice sentiment but wrong, wrong, wrong. There are countries, and there will always be countries who think like that.

War and the threat of war has not changed in 10 thousand years of our history, and platitudes and opinions and think tanks and "can't we just get along" is Candy Land thinking.

People will kill people, countries will start wars and it doesn't matter a whole hill of beans if we "wish" it wasn't so.

I don't like it anymore than you. But I also am enough in touch with reality to know that we better be prepared to kill.

Period.

And now let us pray. Please bow your heads.

Smart power...

While in Poland on Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden claimed that as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he led the fight for Poland’s entry into NATO–an event that occurred before his chairmanship.

“Fifteen years ago, I was honored, as the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, to lead the fight for Poland’s admission into NATO,” Biden declared. Poland joined NATO in 1999. Biden served as chairman from 2001 to 2003.

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs ... p-and-nato

This stuff is not funny, not at all.

Reverend Revelant wrote: Smart power...

While in Poland on Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden claimed that as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he led the fight for Poland’s entry into NATO–an event that occurred before his chairmanship.

“Fifteen years ago, I was honored, as the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, to lead the fight for Poland’s admission into NATO,” Biden declared. Poland joined NATO in 1999. Biden served as chairman from 2001 to 2003.

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs ... p-and-nato

This stuff is not funny, not at all.

Someone really needs to make sure our idiot VP stays busy here at home... maybe he should be Obama's caddy and leave these foreign issues to those with more brain cells.

And you are right in your large post, we don't let our guard down ever, even if mistakes were made in the past. Our enemies smell weakness in leadership... they don't need to be even more empowered by a self-imposed reduction in our world influence and military capabilities. China and Russia will be more than happy to fill that leadership void.

FredHayek wrote:

archer wrote: Maybe if we hadn't spent a decade fighting 2 unnecessary wars this country and it's citizens would be in a better position to confront Putin. We have neither the money nor the will of the citizens to do anything more than talk. Sad really, to invest so much in the middle east, that we cannot support our allies in the rest of the world.

Putin took our measure over the last 16 years. He knows full well that America has lost its appetite for war , losing so many young men and woman, and bringing home thousands of wounded soldiers, it's convenient to blame Obama, and I don't blame you for doing so, I'm sure it's easier than looking in the mirror and knowing that you.....or at least your republican vote in 2000 set us on the course to where we are today.

Your hero Barack Obama said Afghanistan was the good war. Is he wrong about this? He even approved a surge/increase in troops and material to help win.

Yeah, he was wrong about that, I believe that we should have gone after bin Laden with seals or other surgical strike team. Of course, by the time Obama was elected, both Afghanistan and Iraq were well under way, and he did get bin Laden the way it should have been done from day 1

The country should always be ready for war, that is very different from saying the country should always go to war where ever there is a conflict. The threat of war keeps people honest, but the American people have made it known that they want out of the business of war, unless it is to directly defend the US, and Putin is well aware of that aversion. Pretending that it it's Obama who is responsible for a decade of war is laughable. That's like blaming your doctor for not curing your cancer instead of yourself because you smoked for 50 years. Bush gave this country a cancer of war, and many of you have decided it's Obama's fault because he can't cure it fast enough.