At the end of the day, I'd rather have a president who doesn't feel the need to respond to public pressure to do something bad for the country.  I never implied we should do nothing, that was your misinterpretation all along.  But large-scale military operations were still the wrong choice.  In the case of Al Q'aida, targeted covert ops would have probably been far more effective than I think they would be against ISIS now, since Al Q'aida was so much smaller and more targeted in its own right.

With regards to "would ISIS have existed anyway," I would say the answer is absolutely no.  Almost no chance.  If Saddam or his sons were still in control of Iraq, he would never have allowed that to happen.  ISIS was able to grow because of the weakness of the Iraqi government.  That was a problem we created as a direct result of military intervention.

Posted by dahsdebater on 2/1/2016 4:57:00 PM (view original):
At the end of the day, I'd rather have a president who doesn't feel the need to respond to public pressure to do something bad for the country.  I never implied we should do nothing, that was your misinterpretation all along.  But large-scale military operations were still the wrong choice.  In the case of Al Q'aida, targeted covert ops would have probably been far more effective than I think they would be against ISIS now, since Al Q'aida was so much smaller and more targeted in its own right.

With regards to "would ISIS have existed anyway," I would say the answer is absolutely no.  Almost no chance.  If Saddam or his sons were still in control of Iraq, he would never have allowed that to happen.  ISIS was able to grow because of the weakness of the Iraqi government.  That was a problem we created as a direct result of military intervention.

At the end of the day, good luck with that.  Elected officials are ALWAYS going to cater to those got them elected.

As for "I never implied", the **** you didn't.   You even said "Yes, it could read that way" this first time I accused you of it.  

As for covert ops, you said that didn't work for **** when I mentioned it.   Make up your mind, dahsluck.

You can't say "absolutely no" and "almost no chance".    Anyway, do you think that the only place it could have grown was Iraq?    Do you know their goal?

As for "I never implied", the **** you didn't.   You even said "Yes, it could read that way" this first time I accused you of it.  

I also said then that it wasn't what I meant, and clarified it.  This is a bad faith argument.

As for covert ops, you said that didn't work for **** when I mentioned it.   Make up your mind, dahsluck.

This is also a bad-faith argument.  I explicitly explained at the time that covert ops wouldn't work against ISIS because of its size, organized military aspect, and governmental organization.  Al'Qaida was and remains a more traditional terrorist organization, smaller and with less depth in the leadership structure.  That makes them more vulnerable to targeted actions.  It took them several years to recover from the loss of Bin Laden.  Just killing most of the leaders sends the same message to terrorists and the American people - come after us, and we'll come after you - without generating nearly as much new negative sentiment towards the United States from Joe Muslim living day to day in the Middle East.  He probably doesn't have the means to worry about the United States unless we do something really egregious to **** him off.  Of course, that's exactly what we did.

You can't say "absolutely no" and "almost no chance".    Anyway, do you think that the only place it could have grown was Iraq?    Do you know their goal?

I just did say it, actually.  So far they haven't had any luck expanding their territory very far into any other nations, even the mess that is Syria right now.  They needed a weakness to exploit, and we gave it to them.

Posted by bad_luck on 2/1/2016 5:00:00 PM (view original):
To me, it makes more sense, if we're talking about ISIS, that he was specifically referring to Iraq. Lots of people lump Iraq in with Afghanistan when talking about fighting terror/responding to 9/11, etc.

So you assumed that dahs was only referring to Iraq.

I said "No, it looks like he's referring to both Afghanistan and Iraq".

You argue for seven or eight pages that "No, he's only referring to Iraq".

Dahs finally shows up and says "Yeah, I was referring to both Afghanistan and Iraq".

And here you are . . . STILL ARGUING ABOUT WHAT YOU THINK HE SAID.

What the **** is wrong with you?

Posted by dahsdebater on 2/1/2016 5:13:00 PM (view original):

As for "I never implied", the **** you didn't.   You even said "Yes, it could read that way" this first time I accused you of it.  

I also said then that it wasn't what I meant, and clarified it.  This is a bad faith argument.

If you clarified it, why did you do it again?  Did you forget your clarification?

Posted by dahsdebater on 2/1/2016 5:18:00 PM (view original):

As for covert ops, you said that didn't work for **** when I mentioned it.   Make up your mind, dahsluck.

This is also a bad-faith argument.  I explicitly explained at the time that covert ops wouldn't work against ISIS because of its size, organized military aspect, and governmental organization.  Al'Qaida was and remains a more traditional terrorist organization, smaller and with less depth in the leadership structure.  That makes them more vulnerable to targeted actions.  It took them several years to recover from the loss of Bin Laden.  Just killing most of the leaders sends the same message to terrorists and the American people - come after us, and we'll come after you - without generating nearly as much new negative sentiment towards the United States from Joe Muslim living day to day in the Middle East.  He probably doesn't have the means to worry about the United States unless we do something really egregious to **** him off.  Of course, that's exactly what we did.

I don't think you did.   So, to clarify, are you saying they have no leadership?    Or that killing them would only create a bigger, badder ISIS?   

Posted by dahsdebater on 2/1/2016 5:25:00 PM (view original):

You can't say "absolutely no" and "almost no chance".    Anyway, do you think that the only place it could have grown was Iraq?    Do you know their goal?

I just did say it, actually.  So far they haven't had any luck expanding their territory very far into any other nations, even the mess that is Syria right now.  They needed a weakness to exploit, and we gave it to them.

Define "territory"?   Because, if you ask me, people killing in the name of ISIS is "territory".

Only reason why they had a weakness in Iraq was because dumba$$ Obama withdrew troops too soon. The war in Iraq DIDN'T CREATE ISIS OR ALLOW THEM TO GET A FOOTHOLD THERE. THE WITHDRAWAL OF OUR TROOPS TOO SOON WAS THE CAUSE.

Blame who's really responsible for the JV TEAM. OBAMA!!!!