We don't elect a secret committee to run the Executive branch of government. I felt the same way when Cheney was obviously calling the shots (I did not vote for W). Anyone who understands the design and function of our government knows this and should not accept what is happening. But, as usual, when you have nothing meaningful to add, ad hominem.
sounds a little ad hominum
I saw no mention of the SPR (strategic petroleum reserve) releases
Being a net exporter while drawing down our strategic reserves does not sound very strategic.... but it does provide that policy talking point.WWW said:
Taiwan security remains in question. China has studied our behavior around the world and is becoming more aggressive challenging our military in international waters (South china sea, Taiwan straits, etc).
International relations don't turn on a dime, but they are moved by events. The disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan was noted by friends and enemies alike making us appear weaker.
?
Besides being all over the place, you're moving the goalposts. The claim I'm refuting is that "US energy independence was wrecked". Show us how it was wrecked.
Headlines aren't important, facts are. Meanwhile the article is forced to admit that the "ruffled feathers" belong to Republicans in Congress - not a big shock there - and that our decades-long One China policy remains unchanged, even noting, "US also allows for its military to come to Taiwan’s defense should Beijing attempt to take Taiwan by force, something both the Trump and Biden administrations stated repeatedly as US-China tensions began heating up in 2016."
Unsupported assertion.
Genuinely no idea what you're getting at.
You are of course entitled to your feelings. But they aren't "facts and observations".
They asked for facts.
As I noted above, I'm addressing the initial claim that "US energy independence is wrecked".
This is not new, not indicative of "giving away Taiwan" as I was refuting.
Again noting that the demands for facts and proof are very one-sided.
Did you look at the graphs in your link? What does the trend look like now? Why isn't the 2022 data on the graphs in the article? Maybe because text makes obfuscation of the data easier while a graph reveals the reality of what has happened in the past couple of years.
Biden and Blinken are weak sauce on foreign policy and that is an apparent fact. Look at how China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea have behaved after Biden was elected (and especially after the disastrously mismanaged Afghanistan withdrawal).
See above.
I think you do. If we're going to excuse Biden's foreign policy failures two and a half years into his administration because it "doesn't turn on a dime," then why didn't the same hold for the Trump administration in June of 2019?
My observations of world events aren't about feelings. The USA is weaker in almost every way since the ine-two punches of the BS extended lock downs and Biden taking office.
yup
and the "fact" you presented is flawed. Exporting SPR is not energy independence except for low information voters. The fossil fuel industries continue to be under attack since this current administration took office.
But China's militarization of the south china sea is relatively new. China was able to squash democracy in Hong Kong with barely a whimper from the west. They are watching Ukraine closely to see if Putin gets away with his adventurism there. If Russia doesn't get hurt for invading Ukraine, China will see that as a green light to invade Taiwan. (Sorry a little mind reading there.)
As Sgt Joe Friday on Dragnet famously said, "just the facts maam just the facts".
Because as indicated the charts were based on data throught October 2022. Kind of hard to chart a year that hasn't finished. If you really wanted the latest data it's a quick search. Petroleum data starts on page 62. Shows continued decrease in imports and increase in production. https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/mer.pdf
It also isn't "wrecking energy independence". Not sure why you think it's incumbent on me to prove a negative.
Nah.
Look at how they behaved before he was elected.
No argument from me. It seems like Russia has already been hurt FWIW.
Lot of false premises there: that you've identified failures, that I'm excusing them, that "turn on a dime" isn't about sodderboy's previous assertion. But seriously: what about June of 2019?
you provided the dodgy claims of energy independence.
exactly....
This isn't over yet but Xi is watching closely to see if he could get away with similar bad behavior.
I don't accept homework assignments.. What about it?
Claiming energy dependence wasn't "wrecked" isn't the same as claiming we are totally independent.
Note that I was replying directly to AnalogPackrat and their repeated context-free reference to June 2019.
It wasn't context-free. You all want to give Biden a pass on his terrible foreign policy 2.5 years into his term because "it doesn't turn on a dime," but no one wanted to give Trump the same deference 2.5 years into his term (June 2019 if you can follow first grade calendar math).
You seem very determined to take it out of context so again, "international relations don't turn on a dime" was a direct response to sodderboy's statement:
No one to my knowledge claimed allies would come rushing back the second Biden took office, nor did they claim there's a waiting period before criticizing a sitting president's decisions.
Hello ad hominem.
By the U.S.? I'll note that no new wars were started 2021-2023 either.
According to your Newsweek article, it ebbed until "the failure in 2019 of the Hanoi Summit, the second meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un" and that "leading up to the Eighth Party Congress [in January 2021] and in the months after it, North Korea 'clearly did a lot of planning and a lot of manufacturing and development, to be able to have all of these systems ready to test back to back throughout this year'".
If requests to OPEC are "groveling" then yes we were. Trump in February 2019: ""OPEC, please relax and take it easy. World cannot take a price hike -- fragile!" More significantly in 2020, when oil prices crashed (due to the pandemic and the Saudi Arabia/Russia spat) he begged OPEC to increase production.
Ok. This is the fault of Biden because...?
nice deflection
The press is clearly on one side
not sweet
ex-President Trump was very sensible about proper use of the military... He gave the military free hand to do what it takes to vaporize the ISIS Caliphate in Iraq/Syria. Now with the softer US/western posture ISIS and others are reforming in Afghanistan.
There is a night and day difference between the posture of rogue nations like N Korea and Iran, not to mention, opposition nations like China and Russia. Since President Biden mishandled Afghanistan withdrawal and other examples of softness. Bad guys don't respect weakness.
interesting choice of words.... Insisting that NATO nations stand up and pay their agreed to funding commitments to NATO, the organization formed to protect them, seems fair, since the US has been paying too much to defend NATO states for way too long.
The buck stops with POTUS but he has openly dismissed sensible advice from military advisers and others.
a distinction without a difference.
claim that the world would end if we don't stop use of fossil fuels in 5 years. Well now she is 20 years old and has deleted her ignorant tweet, but hasn't changer her tune. There is a long list of such claims.Thanks for reminding I've already spent too much time on this.
They didn't run away under Trump. Allies that can't pull their own weight or meet treaty requirements aren't a good deal. Trump at least held them to account.
An observation on your inability to either do math or follow a simple analogy.
Right. Let's ignore the huge proxy war enabled by the obvious weakness of the US (and NATO).
It isn't like NK did not have the means to launch or perform a nuke test at all during the Trump administration. Clearly they waited until Weak Joe took office.
He begged Venezuela, too. Yes, groveling.
Because the only nation that can reasonably and meaningfully oppose Chinese aggression is the USA. Capiche?
Why the rudeness?
Wait. They’re reforming because we’re gone and there’s not enough power of those that oppose there. Plain and simple. How does that make the US/western posture softer? It can be argued that us leaving before completing the job contributed to us looking soft.
Strategic Petroleum Reserve
We left in a chaotic and unplanned way. Billions in weapons and munitions were abandoned which are now being used for ill.
That's not what he said. How can you intrepret what JR wrote in such a back-asswards way?
It doesn't have to be argued. It is patently obvious.
No, that would be the CNN/MSNBC narrative trying to cover for the Biden administration's cluster. Even the military admitted as much. And even if it was "Trump's plan," why didn't Biden's brilliant and diverse team figure out it was bad and formulate something better? They had 19 months to do so. Either way, they are incompetent.
The only posturing is related to defending what Biden & Co did and the poor outcome. It happened. Own it.
