Obama acknowledges worst mistake as POTUS

blacbird said:

There hasn't been a "declaration of war" by the U.S. since 1941. We've been involved in plenty of acts of war since then. I know, firsthand.

caw

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I know it firsthand too. And, you know what? I think it's time to go back to pre-1945 and say, "You want a war? Declare it."

Hey congress! Do your friggin' job.

James D. Macdonald said:

I know it firsthand too. And, you know what? I think it's time to go back to pre-1945 and say, "You want a war? Declare it."

Hey congress! Do your friggin' job.

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The Presidency is too much of a god figure now. People would rather let one guy run the show. Easier to praise when things go right, easier to condemn when they go wrong.

How can you have an Imperial Presidency if the President can't send troops anywhere, for any reason, at the drop of a hat?

Oh, I forgot. The Imperial Presidency isn't really a thing.

Wellp, to be fair, he can't say his REAL biggest mistake, which was wasting too much time trying to compromise with the current generation of GOP goobers. They had no interest in compromise.

But yeah, refreshing to see him own up to Libya. Still, there's no way in hell you get a power shift in the Middle East without it being messy. At least Gaddafi's ousting was good.

James D. Macdonald said:

I know it firsthand too. And, you know what? I think it's time to go back to pre-1945 and say, "You want a war? Declare it."

Hey congress! Do your friggin' job.

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And, as Will Rogers suggested, don't enter into a war until you've paid for the last one.

James D. Macdonald said:

Hey congress! Do your friggin' job.

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Now you're just being completely unreasonable.

caw

James D. Macdonald said:

I know it firsthand too. And, you know what? I think it's time to go back to pre-1945 and say, "You want a war? Declare it."

Hey congress! Do your friggin' job.

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Yes, and I wonder how many conflicts would be occurring in the world today if the politicians who sought war were required to assign themselves and their family members to the front lines of the battle they ordained.

KCT said:

Yes, and I wonder how many conflicts would be occurring in the world today if the politicians who sought war were required to assign themselves and their family members to the front lines of the battle they ordained.

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Considering how many of the current generation dodged the draft in one way or another, I doubt that'll ever happen.

blacbird said:

Now you're just being completely unreasonable.

caw

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I think that the last sixty-some-odd years would have been better if we'd only gone into declared wars.

They can also cancel the War on Drugs and the War on Terror. (The War on Poverty hasn't done too well either.)

James D. Macdonald said:

I think that the last sixty-some-odd years would have been better if we'd only gone into declared wars.

They can also cancel the War on Drugs and the War on Terror. (The War on Poverty hasn't done too well either.)

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Yeah, but to expect Congresspeople to do their jobs, what can you possibly be thinking?

caw

blacbird said:

Yeah, but to expect Congresspeople to do their jobs, what can you possibly be thinking?

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Yeah. Congress is all about checks and balances:

"Here's your check."

"Put it on my balance."

KCT said:

Yes, and I wonder how many conflicts would be occurring in the world today if the politicians who sought war were required to assign themselves and their family members to the front lines of the battle they ordained.

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Didn't stop World War 1 - how many important people's kids died in that war?

I know it was a lot.

But to be fair...the early 20th century was a weird time.

Zoombie said:

Didn't stop World War 1 - how many important people's kids died in that war?

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The problem (one of the problems) was that no one expected the sheer bloodiness of WWI. 19th century wars were, by contrast, brief adventures in the out-of-doors with just enough danger to make it spicy and give you some stories to tell afterward. The machinegun-and-barbed-wire reality was the unexpected result of the industrialization of warfare. And let's not even talk about gas. No one had ever experienced that.

Now we have permanent war because bread-and-circuses have always worked.

Zoombie said:

Didn't stop World War 1 - how many important people's kids died in that war?

I know it was a lot.

But to be fair...the early 20th century was a weird time.

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Many "important people's" kids died in WWII also. Not so many since then.

James D. Macdonald said:

The problem (one of the problems) was that no one expected the sheer bloodiness of WWI. 19th century wars were, by contrast, brief adventures in the out-of-doors with just enough danger to make it spicy and give you some stories to tell afterward. The machinegun-and-barbed-wire reality was the unexpected result of the industrialization of warfare. And let's not even talk about gas. No one had ever experienced that.

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This might be underselling the brutality of 19th Century warfare just a bit. The effective mass deployment of technological advances in warfare did turn WWII into an ugly, gruesome stalemate, and the cause of the war did seem comparatively "small" enough for people not to expect the war would spiral into the colossal horror it did. But the American Civil War, the Boer Wars, the Franco-Prussian war and many others all had plenty of horror and death to spare.

Jcomp said:

This might be underselling the brutality of 19th Century warfare just a bit. The effective mass deployment of technological advances in warfare did turn WWII into an ugly, gruesome stalemate, and the cause of the war did seem comparatively "small" enough for people not to expect the war would spiral into the colossal horror it did. But the American Civil War, the Boer Wars, the Franco-Prussian war and many others all had plenty of horror and death to spare.

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I think the sheer magnitude of the slaughter of World War I was a quantum step in destruction.

In England, they still speak of a lost generation, a war which took an entire generation of the best and brightest. There has been some revisionist history since that time, but there can be no doubt that it decimated nations in a fashion that we in the states have never seen, even during the bloody Civil War.

rugcat said:

I think the sheer magnitude of the slaughter of World War I was a quantum step in destruction.

In England, they still speak of a lost generation, a war which took an entire generation of the best and brightest. There has been some revisionist history since that time, but there can be no doubt that it decimated nations in a fashion that we in the states have never seen, even during the bloody Civil War.

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The volume of bodies and scale of destruction--especially for a war that many countries were fighting in despite having no direct stake in the initial cause of the war--produced by the stalemate and the mass deployment of new wartime technology made an immediate impression on how warfare was viewed in many parts of the world. I was responding to the idea that 19th century wars just provided enough danger to be the source of a good story.

Jcomp said:

I was responding to the idea that 19th century wars just provided enough danger to be the source of a good story.

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The words you missed were "in contrast."

James D. Macdonald said:

The words you missed were "in contrast."

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I didn't miss them. Even "in contrast" I think the idea that 19th century wars were just dangerous enough to be "spicy" and provide a good story is underselling the brutality of the events. It would be like if I said "In contrast to the Bhola Cyclone, Hurricane Katrina was a sunshower." That would be grossly underselling the devastation caused by the latter storm, even if the death toll and devastation of the former storm is several magnitudes greater.

The important thing, I think, that we need to take away from this is that it doesn't matter the century, people selling war as an adventure are full of crap.

That doesn't make wars always bad - there are good reasons to go to war, and good reasons to have the ability to defend yourself. Hell, there's value in the military life. I've met people whose lives were shaped for the positive by joining the military and inculcating themselves in the culture. Duty, honor, respect, hard work, loyalty. These are all good things.

Which is why the utter wastefulness of modern bush fire wars fills me with such rage.

Pardon, but the Thirty Years War was in the 17th century and it was pretty damn destructive. And the Taiping Rebellion in the 19th century--which was more of an international war than some realize--had a larger death toll than did WWI. In fact, some estimates put the former's death toll at over three times that of WWI.

robeiae said:

And the Taiping Rebellion in the 19th century--which was more of an international war than some realize--had a larger death toll than did WWI. In fact, some estimates put the former's death toll at over three times that of WWI.

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Bah. Didn't primarily involve Western Civilization; doesn't count.

Just to throw in my thoughts on the initial topic, I don't know what I'd consider Obama's biggest mistake to be, but I think having a sitting president admit to a mistake / having a regret--especially one that isn't more of a humble-brag "I wish I could've been even more perfect" fake-mistake--isn't bad.