WH: We've ‘Substantially Improved the Tranquility of the Global Community

[TGHusker]

Agree or disagree

 

Is the Global Community much more tranquil now than prior to 2009?

 

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/wh-weve-substantially-improved-tranquility-global-community

[zoogs]

Man, I'd raise my eyebrows at that one.

 

There's only so much you can do, but one of those things is not saying stuff like that.

[LukeinNE]

Foreign policy is tough. It's also tough to analyze because of a lack of information available, but we can measure dumb claims.

 

-Israel and Hamas are in a shooting war

-Syria is in civil war

-Iraq is in civil war

-Libya is in turmoil

-Germany is pissed at us

-North Korea is still launching sh#t at the South

-China and Japan are playing chicken in the East China Sea

-Part of Ukraine is under Russian occupation, Russia is claiming Ukraine shelled Russian territory and killed people

 

I'm not really interested in assigning blame (in several cases I think it's stuff completely out of our control)....but come on guys. 'Tranquility' isn't a word that should be used with any part of the non-western world right now.

[knapplc]

Agreed, Luke, especially with your last line. The Middle East, the Korean Peninsula and China/Japan are feuds that predate the past several presidential eras, but for certain the Ukraine situation as it stands now is unique to this presidency. But if you're going to claim you've done something to bring "tranquility" to the world... a few of these examples should be on Keep Warm, not somewhere between a steady simmer and a full-on boil.

 

But even beyond that, you've got unrest in Central America, so much so that tens of thousands of children are hopping the border. You've got Afghanistan awash in turmoil. You've got the long-standing feud between Pakistan & India heating up again. You've got trouble in Indonesia, you've got more piracy on the open sea today than ever before, you've got god-knows-how-many areas of unrest & civil war in Africa, you've got Greece teetering on the brink of financial collapse & under threat of riot (and a concerning rise of Fascism underneath all that), and you've got rampant unemployment in Spain, so much so that the entire European economy is a precarious balancing act being held together by duct tape & strudel. You've got a fair portion of the old Eastern Bloc nations calling for NATO membership under threat of Russian imperialism, you've got Iran almost with a nuclear weapon, you've got nutters running the government in Australia & destroying the environment - and that brings us to Climate Change (nee Global Warming) wherein our grandchildren probably won't live in a world with a north polar ice cap.

 

And none of this even touches on the fact that we're living in the latter stages of a democratic America running pell-mell towards oligarchy, being aided by the very officials we've elected to represent us.

 

I mean, sure - I don't know the context of this statement, and I haven't listened to or read the comment this came from, so maybe this was just a poor choice of words. More likely it was yet more political posturing out of Washington, trying to push an idea to the base (everything is awesome!), but even allowing for a poor choice of words in an off-the-cuff statement... no. This isn't reality at all.

[TGHusker]

very well stated Knapp

[Creighton Duke]

Agreed, Luke, especially with your last line. The Middle East, the Korean Peninsula and China/Japan are feuds that predate the past several presidential eras, but for certain the Ukraine situation as it stands now is unique to this presidency. But if you're going to claim you've done something to bring "tranquility" to the world... a few of these examples should be on Keep Warm, not somewhere between a steady simmer and a full-on boil.

 

But even beyond that, you've got unrest in Central America, so much so that tens of thousands of children are hopping the border. You've got Afghanistan awash in turmoil. You've got the long-standing feud between Pakistan & India heating up again. You've got trouble in Indonesia, you've got more piracy on the open sea today than ever before, you've got god-knows-how-many areas of unrest & civil war in Africa, you've got Greece teetering on the brink of financial collapse & under threat of riot (and a concerning rise of Fascism underneath all that), and you've got rampant unemployment in Spain, so much so that the entire European economy is a precarious balancing act being held together by duct tape & strudel. You've got a fair portion of the old Eastern Bloc nations calling for NATO membership under threat of Russian imperialism, you've got Iran almost with a nuclear weapon, you've got nutters running the government in Australia & destroying the environment - and that brings us to Climate Change (nee Global Warming) wherein our grandchildren probably won't live in a world with a north polar ice cap.

 

And none of this even touches on the fact that we're living in the latter stages of a democratic America running pell-mell towards oligarchy, being aided by the very officials we've elected to represent us.

 

I mean, sure - I don't know the context of this statement, and I haven't listened to or read the comment this came from, so maybe this was just a poor choice of words. More likely it was yet more political posturing out of Washington, trying to push an idea to the base (everything is awesome!), but even allowing for a poor choice of words in an off-the-cuff statement... no. This isn't reality at all.

[BigRedBuster]

I read the title of this thread and said...WTF???? I was hoping it was a joke because it is far far from reality.

[zoogs]

Full context:

 

“How does the White House react to the notion that the president is a bystander to all these crises?” asked Fox News’ Ed Henry, citing the widening gaps between the sides in the Iranian nuclear talks, the conflict in and around Gaza, and the Syrian civil war.

 

“I think that there have been a number of situations in which you’ve seen this administration intervene in a meaningful way, that has substantially furthered American interests and substantially improved the, uh, you know, the – the tranquility of the global community,” Earnest replied.

[jimk]

Why's Germany mad at us?

[TGHusker]

Why's Germany mad at us?

we spy on friends

[LukeinNE]

 

Why's Germany mad at us?

we spy on friends

 

 

Everyone spies on everyone. My guess at this point is that Germany is just having to put on a show of outrage for domestic political reasons.