You call this a foreign policy?
Foreign Policy eviscerates Obama’s (foreign policy, that is).
Excerpt:
…[U]nlike Bush, whose flaw-riddled first-term foreign policy was followed by important and not fully appreciated second-term course corrections, Obama seems steadfast in his resistance both to learning from his past errors and to managing his team so that future errors are prevented. It is hard to think of a recent president who has grown so little in office. …
The hope was that, in his second term, the president might address some of these issues. But by all reports, the situation has gotten worse. On the foreign policy side, this has meant that “the true believers” — as one first-termer called McDonough, Rice, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, and U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, among others — have moved up and gained power, periodically being supported by Obama’s closest political advisors. Many of the people who often offset their views — such as Hillary Clinton, former CIA Director Leon Panetta, and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates — have moved on…
As Obama’s bubble has gotten smaller, the president has reportedly become frustrated with criticism too, compounding his famous aloofness with a more defensive attitude…
The whole thing is worth reading, although I think it gives Obama way too much credit. But the author, David Rothkopf, editor and CEO of the magazine, appears to be a Democrat and former member of the Clinton administration with impeccable liberal credentials. Considering that, the depth of his criticism is telling.
And as low as my previous opinion of Susan Rice (and Obama’s foreign policy aides in general) has been, the following excerpt (if true) still has the capacity to shock me. How low can you go?:
In one meeting, Rice pressed the German delegation relentlessly for leadership within the European Union. The Germans sought more time and consultation with other EU member states, frustrating Rice to the point that she lost her cool and reportedly launched into a profanity-filled lecture that featured a rare diplomatic appearance of the word “motherfucker.” Germany’s national security advisor, Christoph Heusgen, was so angered that he told an American confidante it was the worst meeting of his professional life.
(Rice’s bluntness and hot temper have undercut her effectiveness throughout her career. In July 2014, the New Republic reported that she once confronted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas outside the Oval Office, saying, “You Palestinians can never see the fucking big picture.” A U.N. ambassador of one of the world’s major powers told me that he didn’t “understand what she thinks she is achieving by talking to us like a longshoreman.” The brusqueness hasn’t helped with her interpersonal relationships within the administration or with her staff, either. It is a particularly frustrating Achilles’ heel for someone who is well known among her friends as having the capacity to be very warm, humorous, and engaging.)
[Hat tip: Ace.]
Which is why I maintain that the best role for Democrats in foreign policy is to take charge of ordering the food at ethnic restaurants. 🙂
Interesting comparison with Bush and Obama re foreign policy problems: When evaluating a policy that isn’t working as desired, Bush changes course and Obama doubles down. Obama always doubles down, it appears. Which reminds me of that oft-quoted definition of insanity: doing the same thing and expecting different results.
Pressing the Germans for leadership in the EU. Yeah, *that’ll* go over well with the rest of Europe…
That woman is clueless…
Knowing Susan Rice was going to be a part of the Obama team was one of the things that portended for me how things would turn out. As bad (in fact worse, since I didn’t imagine our fellow citizens would double-down on stupid) as I thought.
guess she *thinks* she talks Texas Tough !
“the president has reportedly become frustrated with criticism too, compounding his famous aloofness with a more defensive attitude…”
Narcissists don’t take criticism well. Which indicates that he’s not agreeable to even looking at his decision making process. So he’ll keep making the same mistakes over and over. As ever, ‘Pride goeth before the fall’.
When ISIS attacks and, they are going to attack, (Obama having given them convenient access through our southern border), it’s all going to blow up in his face. Here’s an ominous indicator for Obama;
“Obama losing the confidence of key parts of the coalition that elected him”
Re: Susan Rice;
“she once confronted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas outside the Oval Office, saying, “You Palestinians can never see the fucking big picture.”
The ‘big picture’ being the Obama administration’s take on how the situation should be viewed. Entirely typical of these people.
What foreign policy? I thought the Obama foreign policy was to apologize and withdraw.
How low can you go?
low enough to walk under a pregnant paramecium and still have head clearance…
no no… you got it all wrong..
she said Mother Focker…
A prayer to her patron saint..
A U.N. ambassador of one of the world’s major powers told me that he didn’t “understand what she thinks she is achieving by talking to us like a longshoreman.”
she is proving she is a feminist in a big mans world
doesnt every ladette today talk like a longshorman to overcompensate for having a pudenda in a patriarchal reality?
It is a particularly frustrating Achilles’ heel for someone who is well known among her friends as having the capacity to be very warm, humorous, and engaging [complete the sentence]
1) in a butch dominating disrespectful kind of way
2) in a femin masculine post second wave liberal progressive feminist kind of way…
3) kind of drunk nazi storm trooper talking to a underclass kind of way
The young and/or inexperienced often fail to acknowledge, or even be aware, that they are doing something wrong, even with overwhelming evidence staring them in the face. When a person doesn’t grow out of that by about age 30, it is usually a sign of a deep flaw in character.
Amon Goeth had more class — and he was psychotic.
When faced with a diplomatic/linguistic shortcoming, “profanity-filled lecture” fills in the gap.
“..featured a rare diplomatic appearance of the word “motherfucker.”
Man, that’s embarrassing.
Had a friend whose father was a career diplomat (not for the US). The amazing thing was that my friend *never* said a harsh word to or against anyone, even in one on one conversations. He always found a way to express displeasure non-verbally, such as making a crazy face (though, in general, he was just a very positive, er, diplomatic guy). It takes discipline to do that – and no one in the Obama administration appears to have any self-discipline.
I had thought at one time Rice deserved the benefit of the doubt as a soldier, dutifully carrying out the orders of an incompetent boss. I’ve come to realize she’s as incompetent, narcissistic, and stubborn as her boss. And fits right in with him in the classless department – Obama the giver of movie CDs and IPods, preloaded with speeches to foreign heads of state. Bush was supposed to be an unsophisticated country bumpkin who embarrassed the country. Rice, Obama, and his administration have the social skills of street thugs and dope dealers. The image they project of American culture is reminiscent of a sleazy HBO television series.
Oh I forgot to add, they’re very hip.
If she’s going to cuss, at least she should do it right. Her modifier order is incorrect. It’s “big fucking picture”, not “fucking big picture”! That’s what’s most embarrassing.
When the Clintons and the Goregon left and Bush/Cheney came to power I and many others were relieved to know experienced grow ups had their hands on the tiller. After the obamas leave, if they leave, it will be an even greater sense of relief if someone like Walker occupies the Oval Office. With very few exceptions everyone associated with team obama is sinister or sophmoric.
There seems to be a perception that using gutter language defines one as hard nosed and hip. Having spent a good part of my life in the company of ruffians of one degree or another, I am not unacquainted with the language. I use it myself, although seldom out loud. But, I do not find it attractive or effective when used by so-called sophisticated folk. For a Senior American Diplomat to use such language in polite or diplomatic company should be a firing offense.
I find it interesting, and discouraging, that Hillary and Podesta are managing to be re-defined as the sensible professionals whose sage advice was simply ignored.
Podesta will always be a political hack in my mind. If he is defined as the responsible adult in the room, then the others must have just crawled out of the nursery–or the sleaze pool.
As for Hillary. How does a Secretary of State hang on for four years if she is being ignored at every turn? Well, only if it is necessary to pad her resume; and if she is confident that her shills will rehabilitate her image when she does finally leave. Other than occasionally getting caught in gutter language herself, or throwing the occasional lamp at Willy, where is the evidence of vaunted toughness? What do we point to as a Clinton accomplishment? Oh, I nearly forgot the Russian “Reset”.
I don’t think Susan Rice learned that language at Sidwell Friends.
Correction: National Cathedral School.
Same thing.
Cornhead
I don’t think Susan Rice learned that language at National Cathedral School
It’s the way that someone with scholar parents, raised in the upper middle class, can “keep it real.”
Language Bully – that’s too funny.
I was thinking the same thing – she put the F word in the wrong spot. I guess she never learned how to diagram a sentence.
Compare and contrast Susan Rice with UN Ambassador John Bolton, who blushes on “Redeye” when off color jokes are made. That’s a classy, strong guy. I wish he would run for president, but he lacks the hubris necessary, I think.
Let’s also not forget that this current administration is among the vanguard of the generation that will be in power for the foreseeable future. It’s only going to get worse, unimaginable as that might be. We screwed the pooch raising these kids, present company excepted, of course.
That squares with a panel on ISIS I attended Friday where one of the speakers is a one-time foreign policy advisor for Senator Schumer and also worked for Senator Dodd, so presumably a Democrat.
He was very frustrated with Obama. He said that Obama, while not clueless, simply denies the parts he doesn’t like so he can stick with the policy he prefers.
He also said that the US staying in Iraq would have changed everything, especially with the Sunni. He said Iraq’s Sunni wanted and trusted the US to stay, and in fact, had agreed to participate in the democratic process solely due to their faith in the US. He said we did successfully achieve democracy in Iraq with the Sunni buy-in, except we left and Maliki screwed it up – badly. The Sunni supported Alawi – a Shiite they viewed as tough but fair – but Maliki blocked Alawi, despite Alawi winning a plurality (but not majority), and went on a bloody anti-Sunni campaign.
He said we decimated AQI in 07-08 and, because of that, AQI’s recruiting dried up. That happened because bin Laden had put all his eggs in one basket by holding Iraq to be the be-all/end-all final battle, where the US would definitely lose. So when the COIN “Surge” worked with the Sunni Awakening, the AQI defeat was resounding in the Islamic world. He said ISIS recruiting has picked up after that because, one, their success in Syria and then Iraq, and two, the renewal of the idea the US is weak since Obama took over from Bush.
The current ISIS crisis would (not could – would) have been averted had we stayed. He confirmed that renewing the SOFA in 2011 was doable, that Obama and Maliki were actually on the same page on the SOFA itself – carry forward the 08-11 SOFA with a drop in troop numbers to 20-34K – except Obama demanded that the Iraqi parliament approve the agreement while Maliki wanted an exec2exec agreement. It’s not clear why Obama insisted on a parliamentary agreement since everyone knew that way wouldn’t work. Then when Obama dropped the troop number to 3-4K, there was no reason for Maliki to continue negotiating.
The speaker’s description of Obama sounds like an occasional commenter who comes here to express an opposition view but when he’s rebutted with strong logic and facts, simply brushes them off as an opinion and then works back to his position as the truth.
Add: The speaker was this guy:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/29/blame-the-obama-doctrine-for-iraq.html#
http://www.politico.com/arena/bio/stuart_gottlieb.html
“someone who is well known among her friends as having the capacity to be very warm, humorous, and engaging.”
I’m sure they both honestly feel that way.
The question:
“where is the evidence of [Hillary Clinton’s] vaunted toughness?” –oldflyer @7:13 pm
The answer:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=shoe+thrown+at+hillary+clinton&qpvt=shoe+thrown+at+hillary+clinton&FORM=IGRE
This is how one expects to lead a nation?
OT, but you would find this interesting: audio interviews of the tugboat and ferry captains and fireboatmen about that day, 9-11, in New York City, and the unprecedented call by the Coasties to “All Available Boats” to evacuate lower Manhattan.
Evacuate Lower Manhattan… The boatlift that ensued was bigger than the Dunkirk effort.
And then there were the fires to fight — with all the watermains ruptured by the collapse of two 110-storey skyscrapers, the water had to be pumped in by fireboats, including one 1936 decommissioned boat named the John J. Harvey, manned by a bunch of retired guys who’d saved her from the knackers.
Click and listen: http://transom.org/2002/all-available-boats/
Cute. Very cute. Susan talks to foreign dignitaries the way I talk to my computer screen whist reading the newest Bats*** Looney policy of Obam-Bam. Susan,’Yo Homegirl, we on the same page, Kinda,’Yo.
Just remember……… Rice works for the only American President in history who routinely “flips the bird” to those that he wishes to “disrespect”.
Both Barry and Rice act like angry adolescent a$$holes when they don’t get their way.
POPE: WWIII UNDERWAY…
Nancy Pelosi: Civilization ‘In Jeopardy’ If GOP Takes Senate
CHINA RISE: 40,000 new millionaires created last year…
Satanists Sell Out ‘Black Mass’ Event…
“Whenever we can, we follow the law.” John Koskinen
Consider the following statement, which was made Thursday by a senior White House official during a conference call [emphasis added]:
I guess I would just add one thing on the coalition question – and I think this is important to really focus on, which is to say, in discussions with governments in the region, notably the Saudis and the Jordanians, what is clear is that we have a very common view of this threat. And this is really quite unusual. ISIL has been I think a galvanizing threat around the Sunni partners in the region.
They view it as an existential threat to them. Saudi Arabia has an extensive border with Syria. The Jordanians are experiencing a destabilizing impact of over a million refugees from the Syrian conflict, and are profoundly concerned that ISIL, who has stated that their ambitions are not confined to Iraq and Syria, but rather to expand to the broader region.
“It would be very important for the Democrats to retain control of the Senate,” Pelosi told Maher. “Civilization as we know it today would be in jeopardy if the Republicans win the Senate.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
“Nobody comes about to vote to say ‘thank you,’” Maher said. “The people who get health care now – they’re the people least likely to vote. The people who come out to vote are the angry people.”
“That’s true,” said Pelosi. “Fear is a motivator, and we are not fear-mongers. The Democrats are messengers of hope, and that’s what we will continue to be.”
Something to consider when looking at what’s going on.. .
When we look at WWII, and we are told when it started, that date and incident was not the date and incident that people knew as the beginning, that date and incident was what the future looking back considered the beginning. At the time, no one wanted to consider the event as the beginning of something else (except maybe Churchill)
If you analyze this feature of things, then one may consider that if they slowed down, one could do things that would not be extreme enough to warrant a response, and would not be considered parts of a greater whole.
That years from now, people may declare the Russian action of invading Georgia as the start of it, or perhaps the invasion of Ukraine, or perhaps the invasion of one of the Baltics. These actions from the perspective of now, are not declared world wars because that will come later when things happen and then people look back and add them up. One event does not a trend make, especially looking forwards.
The larger question is, how far apart in time should one space events so that such things are not looked at together, but as a chain of separate events that as separate things do not rise up to the level of action. Think.. when hitler went into the sudentland, no one declared war. When he went into Austria, no one declared war… even when he want into Poland, that wasn’t the start of it either, but it was the start of people noticing and assuming the greater thing. Now imagine if he waited a year or so between each thing, rather than one after the other in speedy succession. How far would he have gotten before the trend was strong enough that people would realize “hey, there is a war going on and we didn’t notice”.
This is the current game. The war started with the invasion of Georgia… not Ukraine. It will continue, with the islam distracting peoples focus, until we realize that the war is going on, and that it will continue and continue, until someone stands up and says stop. Tweedle dumb and tweedle dee wont do that, in fact, they are working on locking down the people of the US financially, and in many other ways, which in the conflict that has started will result in packaging things up to give as a present with a bow.
Our kids are too fat, lazy and stupid, to fight even if they wanted to, which is another part of it. They have few real world skills, cant fix anything, don’t know how things work, their idea of physics is from movies which violate it. They want fuel to stop, which is great to prevent defense. They want stagnation, and halting of society, akin to 10-289 in effect. Sadly, I think that the politicians will think that they have a place of reward and position for packaging things up for their others and not their people. But the truth is, as I have explained before, the Russians see such people as traitors that cant be trusted. While their people can do such things and its their side, to do so from the position of opposition does not make one a friend, but a disposable enemy, a traitor to be used, but certainly after the fact not to be rewarded, regarded or have a place .after all, if you betrayed the place that was best in the world, most free and provided you such comfort and freedom, what would you do when you woke up to the reality of what you betrayed and what you served?
The war started a while back..
we are but a sleeping tiger who refuses to see that the hunters around us are together, and assume they are apart and so, easy to ignore.
20 years from now, some academic will look at when we start fighitng, and then trace back, and will declare a prior event as the start of it… not the time we started fighting.
December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan) is and was an event that made it clear, we are in a war and a war is our response.
our war with germany started 4-5 days LATER
Hitler declares war on the United States on December 11, 1941
what had he done before that? that was not war, or was it?
to quote wiki:
the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, though related conflicts began earlier.
i have been saying its started already
now the pope is saying it
do we need a nuclear boom or some other crap to wake up to the fact that we are at war? 9/11 was not enough, was it?
Beverly; thanks for that link.
“Many of the people who offset their views—such as Hillary Clinton,…”
The Foreign Affairs author—having dislodged his nose from Team Obama—has placed right back on Hillary’s corpulent backside. ‘Nuff said.
The Obama foreign & military idiocy of the past near 6-years needs to be hung right around Hillary’s neck along with those mentioned in criticism. Be relentless, Republicans, in the ’16 campaign.
Oldflyer said:
There seems to be a perception that using gutter language defines one as hard nosed and hip. Having spent a good part of my life in the company of ruffians of one degree or another, I am not unacquainted with the language. I use it myself, although seldom out loud. But, I do not find it attractive or effective when used by so-called sophisticated folk. For a Senior American Diplomat to use such language in polite or diplomatic company should be a firing offense.
Concur. I used to swear more when I was in college than I do now after after 20 years in the Navy. Listening to all those senior officers dropping f-bombs right and left when speaking at all-hands meetings was eye-opening. They thought they were “keeping it real.” They’d swear for a bit, then pause and say something like, “excuse my language, I’m just an old sailor.”
Did they think everyone was going to think, “Wow, this guy is just like one of us?” It was groan inducing. And they all did it. It wasn’t an original act. After the first couple of times you could practically sing along. Nobody was buying the act. Once I asked a friend to shoot me if I ever started acting or talking like that.
Artfldgr upthread had a good point about Rice “proving she is a feminist in a big mans world.” There’s that, too. Not that women are the only ones who overcompensate for their lack of confidence by swearing because they think otherwise they won’t be taken seriously.
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