Obama's Redline: Ridiculous Hypocrisy

Obama's Redline: Will it bend? Will it break?

-Limited, Military Strike
-Unclear objectives
-Unclear goals
-Unknown timeline
-Cost $1 Billion per month of action in Syria
Preempt to further military commitment?
Will President Obama authorize military action without Congressional approval?
-Will there be national implications if he does?

America's Hypocrisy: U.S. Interests Abroad versus America's Long History of Lying, Cheating, & Stealing to Achieve it's Goals
-Previous entanglements in civil wars abroad
-Iraq, Afghan wars approx. 4 to 6 TRILLION
-Poorly-supported/"bad" intelligence to enter Iraq
-Usurped regimes/"Regime Change" (Panama '89, Iraq'03, Sandinista/Contras '81-'90, Boland Amendment,
Gaza Strip '06 - present, Iran '05 - present, Libya '11, Syria '12)
-Coup d'état
-"Plausible Deniability"

Leaving the hypocrisy behind & getting back to the original thought...
My needs as a Libertarian [Max Freedom/Min Gov't] slightly conflict with my needs to make the world a better place because we can. Unfortunately, we don't, because we don't care enough to do it for the right reasons. I'm not a fan of being the world's police; that's the United Nation's responsibility, unfortunately, as an organization tasked with managing international conflict they fail miserably. When I think of the U.N. I immediately recall the animated movie Team America; specifically, the scene of the meeting between Hanz Blix and Kim Jun Ill. When the North Korean dictator asks what repercussions they will face at the hands of the United Nations, Hanz informs a sarcastic Ill that "the United Nations will be very upset...and they will write a letter to North Korea telling them just how upset they are." Its hysterical but sadly it's true, despite their elitist attitude!

Heart of the Matter: Where Was the Redline Here?

Darfur

...President Bush insisted there must be consequences for rape and murder, and he called for international troops on the ground to protect innocent Darfuris, according to contemporaneous notes by one of those present. He spoke of "bringing justice" to the Janjaweed, the Arab militias that have participated in atrocities that the president has repeatedly described as nothing less than "genocide."Yet a year and a half later, the situation on the ground in Darfur is little changed: More than 2 million displaced Darfuris, including hundreds of thousands in camps, have been unable to return to their homes. The perpetrators of the worst atrocities remain unpunished. Despite a renewed U.N. push, the international peacekeeping troops that Bush has long been seeking have yet to materialize.

Many of those who have tracked the conflict over the years, including some in his own administration, say Bush has not matched his words with action, allowing initiatives to drop because of inertia or failure to follow up, while proving unable to mobilize either his bureaucracy or the international community. The president who famously promised not to allow another Rwanda-style mass murder on his watch has never fully chosen between those inside his government advocating more pressure on Sudan and those advocating engagement with its Islamist government, so the policy has veered from one approach to another.

"Bush probably does want something done, but the lack of hands-on follow-up from this White House allowed this to drift," said one former State Department official involved in Darfur who did not want to be quoted by name criticizing the president. "If he says, 'There is not going to be genocide on my watch,' and then 2 1/2 years later we are just getting tough action, what gives? He has made statements, but his administration has not given meaning to those statements." Since the United States became the first and only government to call the killing in Darfur genocide, Bush and his aides have grappled with how to provide security for civilians in a large, remote area in the heart of Africa.

Even Bush has complained privately that his hands are tied on Darfur because, with the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, he cannot be seen as "invading another Muslim country," according to people who have spoken with him about the issue.

Here we see the redline has shifted according to a sitting POTUS in fear of offending a group of people.

"If there was ever a case study where the president sees the limitations and frustrations of the multilateral organizations, it is the issue of Darfur,"

In late 2005, Bush gathered his most senior advisers to discuss what to do about Darfur. He wanted to know whether the U.S. military could send in helicopter gunships to attack the militias if they launched new attacks on the refugee camps. Could they also shoot down Sudanese military aircraft if necessary? he asked. His aides worried that the United States could get involved in another shooting war, and the president backed off.

...but Bush said he considered -- and decided against -- sending U.S. troops unilaterally. "It just wasn't the right decision," he said.

So if an Administration recognizes that the multicultural organizations are useless, do you not have your decision to act unilaterally? Bush was chasing his tail, it sounds.

[Washington] its belief that the African Union was incapable of dealing with the security problem in Darfur on its own.

Roger Winter, a former State Department official who was intimately involved with Sudan policy during the Bush administration, argues that the United States has never been serious about pressuring the Sudanese government.

Perhaps this president had no redline?

"Overall," concluded John R. Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, "Sudan is a case where there's a lot of international rhetoric and no stomach for real action."

That speaks volumes...

By The Numbers

...a more recent British Parliamentary Report has estimated that over 300,000 people have died, and others have estimated even more.In March 2005, the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland estimated that 10,000 were dying each month excluding deaths due to ethnic violence.[159] An estimated 2.7 million people had at that time been displaced from their homes, mostly seeking refuge in camps in Darfur's major towns.[160] Two hundred thousand had fled to neighboring Chad. Reports of violent deaths compiled by the UN indicate between 6,000 and 7,000 fatalities from 2004 to 2007

The UN disclosed on 22 April 2008 that it might have underestimated the Darfur death toll by nearly 50%

That's astonishing!

Rwandan Genocide

Another failure for the United Nations, it is quoted..."The situation proved too "risky" for the UN to attempt to help." Awesome!

There were no U.S. troops officially in Rwanda at the onset of the genocide. A National Security Archive report points out five ways in which decisions made by the U.S. government contributed to the slow U.S. and worldwide response to the genocide:
1.) The U.S. lobbied the U.N. for a total withdrawal of U.N. (UNAMIR) forces in Rwanda in April 1994
2.) Secretary of State Warren Christopher did not authorize officials to use the term "genocide" until May 21, and even then, U.S. officials waited another three weeks before using the term in public

Obama's Redline: Ridiculous Hypocrisy

3.) Bureaucratic infighting slowed the U.S. response to the genocide in general
4.) The U.S. refused to jam extremist radio broadcasts inciting the killing, citing costs and concern with international law
5.) U.S. officials knew exactly who was leading the genocide, and actually spoke with those leaders to urge an end to the violence but did not follow up with concrete action

Statistics of the Genocide:•Over the course of 100 days from April 6 to July 16 1994, an estimated 800,000 to 1 million Tutsis and some moderate Hutus were slaughtered in the Rwandan genocide.1 A recent report has estimated the number to be close to 2 million. •During this period of terrible slaughter, more than 6 men, women and children were murdered every minute of every hour of every day. This brutally efficient killing was maintained for more than 3 months.

•Between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped during the 100 days of genocide.5 Up to 20,000 children were born to women as a result of rape.•More than 67% of women who were raped in 1994 during the genocide were infected with HIV and AIDS.7 In many cases, this resulted from a systematic and planned use of rape by HIV+ men as a weapon of genocide. The UN estimate the number killed as 800,000. The Rwandan Government estimate is 1,071,000. RWANDA: No consensus on genocide death toll.

A 2008 AERG Report estimates the number killed to be 1,952,078 people.

Where was the United States Redline in retrospect of just these two instances?


Darfur War
Rwandan Stats
CIA in Nic
Iran Contra

thank you for posting all this info.

reply to post by Toastbuster


Why thank him?

It is all just more blame Bush liberal crap.

Obama has been president for five years. Own this crap already. It is no longer Bush's fault. Obama owns all of this.

Originally posted by Diisenchanted
reply to post by Toastbuster

 

Why thank him?

It is all just more blame Bush liberal crap.

Obama has been president for five years. Own this crap already. It is no longer Bush's fault. Obama owns all of this.

Awww, I hope I didn't hurt your feelings. Bush-acolytes are so sensitive. In actuality, if you read deeper into the message it has to do with the American philosophy over the past 50 years, a collection of all Administrations, not just one. There is no liberal "crap" in there. There's no doubt Bush was a moron, and believe me, Obama isn't much better.

reply to post by Toastbuster


Thanks for your input!

I was thanking him for compiling the info.... i did not say if i agreed with it or not

reply to post by Cosmic911


Actually I am no fan of George Bush. I just think it is ironic how you lib's are still blaming him after five years.

You make your thread sound as if it has something to do with Obama then spend half the time talking about Bush. That's so yesterday!

reply to post by Diisenchanted


The failure is believing its about a president, it's the philosophy that is the hypocrisy. Yes, President Bush is mentioned more than President Obama. You apparently didn't grasp that I'm a Libetarian. It seems you have a liking for libs, you mention it so much. Draw the comparison...

Additional failures of the U.S. and the international community include the time China ran over protestors in the late 1980s with tanks. China still enjoys "most favored nation" status, if I recall correctly. Where was the redline then?