Quote Originally Posted by Gandalf View Post
Quote Originally Posted by TitoFan View Post
Didn't watch all of it, but enough to get the gist.

Obviously there are some things in there that are beyond the realm of feasibility. Tweets of Syrian civilians saying they "love" Trump are to say the least hysterical. A 7-year old Syrian refugee girl reading talking about a conflict that has gone on for 6 years is believable only by other 7-year olds. Nikki Haley is nothing but a parrot with an audience.

That being said, the video speaker is a bit too zealous at times in order to make his point. If you're going to show a graph in what is a poor attempt at proving that Trump is bombing Syria to gain popularity in the States, at least have the professionalism to show the correct dates in the graph. Also, as somewhat knowledgeable of graphs and tendencies, that particular graph does not show a reverse in the negative tendency of the data. There's ups and downs throughout the graph, with the general tendency remaining downward. Stick to politics, and leave the statistics to the experts. Also, in dismissing the USA Today "handy infograph" (new word, I guess) as skewed, saying that there's opposition to the Syrian bombing outside of China, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, and Syria.... the speaker is saying the obvious. But there is an official position by each country which is what the "infograph" is trying to portray. We see Syria's envoy to the UN categorically deny the Syrian use of any chemical weapons, but...... really..... what is he supposed to say. That they're gassing the hell out of civilians and everybody mind their own business?

The comparison to the Iraq WMD affair was pretty good, however. When that was actually happening, I was among those with my eyebrows raised the highest. Maybe it was because Bush was involved and I've always disliked Bush a great deal. But the whole thing stunk from the beginning. You'd think the public would've learned a very good lesson from that one.

There's a bottom line for me on this and it's quite simple.

The term "national security" gets abused used quite often when justifying military actions. If you look for definitions of "national security", you find that the term has evolved from its simple origin meant to define protection from military threats or political coercion threatening a country's borders. The term apparently has been expanded to include justification for military actions abroad, where threats to the aggressor are unclear, muddled, or nonexistent.

All of this is to say that I fail to understand what we're doing in Syria in the first place. Especially given the fact that bombings in Syria have brought in close, direct conflict with Russia..... something I hope we're all against. Whether or not Syria is gassing its own people shouldn't be the business of the U.S., or any other country, for that matter. We can fret over it.... we can criticize it.... we can condemn it. But bombing the country? It's wrong.
I like that the chap admits that he could be wrong as some of the details are just impossible to know with any certainty. When was the last time you heard the BBC or CNN admit the potential to be wrong or preface a report with 'But we could be wrong'? The mainstream claims to be an authoritative voice, but has been caught out misleading people far too many times now. The narrative simply doesn't work anymore. I don't even bother with the BBC or CNN anymore. They are a waste of time.


Yeah, I liked that he said that right off the bat. Given the slant in the news nowadays, to where you don't know what to believe and what not to believe, it's refreshing to hear someone add that preface to whatever he's got to say. I don't just dismiss CNN entirely, as IMO some of the newspeople on the network are better and more believable than others. But it's all got to be taken with a grain of salt. You just can't take everything you see or hear as gospel. Problem becomes, I'm sure with most people, that you've got to get your news from somewhere. We're not personally present at any of these events. So we're at a disadvantage right off the bat. It's become to where we have to be suspicious of every news source. That's the sad part.