Romofan wrote:
The humble man who loves children and puppies, upright businessman, and man of faith and probable next messiah is a figment of his voters collective fevered imagination.
But you love Obama, who saw Haiti, Syria, and Libya exploited and/or eliminated by American-related forces. The flood of refugees that destabilized Europe happened in large part on his watch. Our relations with Russia and North Korea, two nuclear powers, were dangerously unstable. And our economy stank. Obama was a straight-up Wall Street puppet handpicked by the odious warmonger Zbigniew Brzezinski.
But you love him...
This is nonsense, occasionally incoherent.
Haiti was destabilised by an earthquake. I don’t think anyone would claim that the President of the United States is responsible for plate tectonics. Haiti was very vulnerable to such a tragedy but you could hardly call the earthquake an “America-related force”.
Libya and Syria were both destabilised first by grassroots uprisings against their brutal dictators, then by terrorist insurgencies. In Libya, an international coalition led by the US, France, and to a lesser extent the UK established a no-fly zone and helped lead to the overthrow of Gadaffi. In Syria, no comparable action was taken against Assad, although again an international coalition fought against ISIS and dramatically shrunk and eventually completely eliminated their territory.
My personal view is that Obama’s lack of action over Assad is his biggest failing, and that Trump’s aggressive response to Assad’s chemical weapons attacks on his own people is one of his few successes. But it is strange to simultaneously criticise Obama for overthrowing Gadaffi and not overthrowing Assad. This is what I refer to as “incoherent”.
The refugee crisis did not destabilise Europe. The countries who dealt with most of it were Syria’s immediate neighbours like Lebanon and Jordan. But the main victims were of course the Syrians and other refugees themselves. They were the ones drowning in the Mediterranean and walking thousands of miles in search of a home.
American relations with North Korea deteriorated dramatically under Donald Trump, who took us to the brink of nuclear war. I think one would be hard pressed to make the case that American relations with Russia have materially improved under Trump either. Obama was often accused (e.g. by Mitt Romney) of being complacent about the threat posed by Russia, but under Trump things have got worse, with the President ignoring Russian interference in foreign elections and Russia feeling like it could get away with the Salisbury poisonings. Trump later failed to implement agreed sanctions against Russian banks and exports in response to the poisonings.
By what measure did the economy “stink” under Obama? Under his watch, the economy saw steady annual growth, inflation was controlled, and unemployment was very low. The sensible management of the Obama era as well as strong Federal Reserve leadership by Bernanke and Yellen set the stage for the continued strong growth under Trump and Powell.
Barack Obama was hand-picked by the American people. He twice won the popular vote, and in 2008 won an astounding electoral college victory. Zbigniew Brzezinski had no more influence than any other voter. And characterising Brzezinski as a “war monger” is rather misleading. He has an extremely mixed record. On one hand, he supported arming the Mujahideen and the Iranian revolution, both terrible blunders. On the other, he supported liberalising Eastern Europe and normalising relations with China, helped broker the Camp David accords, encouraged the signing of SALT, and vehemently opposed the Iraq War even when it was popular.