Random Thoughts (Political Edition)

Just glad majority of Australians were able to see beyond the immediate benefits to themselves (ie, less handouts under a Coalition government) and take into account the needs of the nation as a whole.

Even if I did agree with Labor's policies I just dont trust them to implement them efficiently or effectively.
 
Just glad majority of Australians were able to see beyond the immediate benefits to themselves (ie, less handouts under a Coalition government) and take into account the needs of the nation as a whole.

Even if I did agree with Labor's policies I just dont trust them to implement them efficiently or effectively.

Actually, the opposite is true. The Coalition policies will advantage the middle class and wealthy, not through handouts but through tax cuts and restricted services. The ones who will hurt are the working class who will have working conditions stripped back and safety nets removed. This election was a blow to Labor but not exactly a glowing endorsement of the Coalition, with the balance of power in the Senate even more widely distributed than the last electoral term.

Labor's problem is not policies (well, most of the policies - some, such as the asylum seeker policies, are terrible), but execution. Under Rudd they were uniformly poor, lacking in detail and hastily implemented. The problem with Labor comes down to one word: Rudd.
 
^ I'm not sure how you can conclude that the election was not an endorsement of the coalition. They received over 45% of the primary vote (their best showing since 1996). You'd have to go back to the 1980s to find an ALP primary vote that was larger. As for the Senate (come July next year), I suspect that the Palmer, Liberal Democrat, Sport and Motor Enthusiast senators will be less hostile to the government than the current setup.

As for Rudd. He was just symptomatic of one of endemic problems with the ALP. He was simply the supreme narcissist among a party of narcissists. One can see this since the election. They were a rubbish government (pink bats, illegal immigrants, tractor sheds for schools, duff laptops for students, carbon tax, mining tax, government debt, jobs for the boys, gender wars, post code wars), but they want to blame Kevin Rudd and their disunity. If they cannot find fault with themselves now, they never will. Also, Rudd would've just been a fart-in-a-bottle if the other members of caucus had ignored him. They didn't, they allowed him to become the miasma he was. All, but those who resigned at his reinstatement to the leadership, have themselves to blame. They cannot lay it all on Rudd.
 
^ I'm not sure how you can conclude that the election was not an endorsement of the coalition. They received over 45% of the primary vote (their best showing since 1996). You'd have to go back to the 1980s to find an ALP primary vote that was larger. As for the Senate (come July next year), I suspect that the Palmer, Liberal Democrat, Sport and Motor Enthusiast senators will be less hostile to the government than the current setup.

Latest predictions have Labor winning 57 seats. That's a long way from the wipeout that was predicted in some quarters with people saying Labor would be reduced to less than 40 seats. If Labor was so unpopular, then the Coalition should have romped home with a massive majority in both houses. Also, the Labor government passed a record number of pieces of legislation - hardly symptomatic of a hostile senate.

As for Rudd. He was just symptomatic of one of endemic problems with the ALP. He was simply the supreme narcissist among a party of narcissists. One can see this since the election. They were a rubbish government (pink bats, illegal immigrants, tractor sheds for schools, duff laptops for students, carbon tax, mining tax, government debt, jobs for the boys, gender wars, post code wars), but they want to blame Kevin Rudd and their disunity. If they cannot find fault with themselves now, they never will. Also, Rudd would've just been a fart-in-a-bottle if the other members of caucus had ignored him. They didn't, they allowed him to become the miasma he was. All, but those who resigned at his reinstatement to the leadership, have themselves to blame. They cannot lay it all on Rudd.

You could also accuse Abbott, Turnbull, Hockey and Joyce of narcissism. The difference with Rudd is that he didn't let go when he was deposed and continually worked to undermine the leader of his party. I agree that the party should have pulled him into line long before it became a problem. This is something that the ALP will need to reflect on long and hard.

As for a rubbish government? Sorry, just wrong:

Pink bats? Yes, unscrupulous installers ripped off the system - they always do. They also didn't train their staff properly, resulting in 4 deaths. The employers should be held accountable, not the government. Regardless of environmental benefits, it makes economic sense for houses to be insulated - less electricity use places less demand on an already burdened electricity grid.

Illegal immigrants? Don't get me started. It's not illegal to seek asylum. The problem lies in the source countries, not in Australian waters. ALP and Coalition both suck horribly in this area.

Gender wars? Gillard played the gender card, no doubt. So did Abbott. Neither side was innocent, and it was a disgusting era for Australian politics. May it never happen again.

Most of the rest is just Liberal party propaganda. If you can't see past the Coalition BS and see that some of the work that the ALP did was actually beneficial (like avoiding recession, NDIS, Gonski education reforms) then there's no hope.

The above makes me sound like an apologist for Labor; I'm not. I'm a swinging voter. I've voted Labor, Liberal, Democrats (remember them?) and, yes, Greens in federal elections. My vote goes to policies, not personalities. I look for evidence, not propaganda. I wish more people would do the same.
 
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What I find interesting is that not even a whole day after the Russians provided the US with a way out of this totally stupid plan for an intervention in Syria, the Republicans started to attack Obama for being "weak" on Syria. WTF?
 
Not sure I understand your question... Are you disagreeing that Russia fought to prevent US military intervention in Syria?
Some people think that Obama and Putin developed the current plan together at the G20 summit in order for both sides to save face.
 
Some people think that Obama and Putin developed the current plan together at the G20 summit in order for both sides to save face.
Putin didn't really need to save face and Obama hasn't saved his with this plan, imo.
 
Russia wants peace in Syria, or more precisely they want the Islamic Pipeline to be built.

There are two proposed pipelines that need to go through Syria. The Islamic Pipeline (already in construction) is to run from Iran through Iraq to Syria. This gives Iran a market in the EU via Syria.

The other pipeline (supported by U.S. allies Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel) is to run from Qatar through Sadi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, finally to Turkey where it would provide natural gas to Europe.

Assad had agreed with Russia and Iran to support the former.

This is why you see a lot of support from the U.S. and its allies for the rebels (to the extent that Turkey is actually supporting the Kurds).

The crisis is more than just geo-politics however. The countries involved in the Islamic pipeline are Shia (or in the case of Syria run by a Shia government). This is why Sunni extremist groups have come to Syria to fight for the rebels. Supported by the U.S. and its allies.

This isn't about chemical warfare.
 
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Putin didn't really need to save face and Obama hasn't saved his with this plan, imo.
Obama and Cameron lost the second they started talking about intervention. While I think that argatoga got the geopolitical motiviations right, I think that Obama wanted to throw the world off the Snowdon/NSA thing, as well, which explains the timing. And that's not even getting started about Cameron's problems. He is behind in the polls, his policies are unpopular and the LibDems are in self-desctuct mode.
But trying to drum up support for another war overseas was futile. The public did not want to go to war, the opposition did not want to go to war, heck, their own parties did not want to go to war either. It would have never worked. This exit was as much face-saving as was possible for Obama given that circumstances, even if not much face was saved in the end - compare him with Cameron, who got humiliated by the opposition and his own MPs.

As for Putin: A U.S. intervention would not have been losing face, but Russia clearly gained from the solution found. Their last ally in the middle east still stands and he succesfully stood his ground against the USA.
 
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Couldn't agree more, especially this bit:
Obama and Cameron lost the second he started talking about intervention. ... Obama wanted to throw the world off the Snowdon/NSA thing, as well, which explains the timing...
 
To respond to all the above, I think there is a very good reason Obama took the airstrike issue to Congress. He had plenty of authority to authorize a strike in the immediate aftermath of the chemical weapons attack on August 21, but he didn't. Instead, he sent the issue to Congress 3 weeks before Congress came back to session. Then he went off to the G20 Summit. Then, conveniently, the Monday after the summit, the same day Congress came back to session, an offhand comment by Kerry sparks the current deal we have now.

I guarantee you that this supposedly spontaneous deal has been in the works for some time, at least since the G20 meeting, and that Obama was trying to keep the US from using air strikes while keeping the threat alive, hence taking it to Congress.

And ultimately, I don't care who "saved face". This isn't about scoring political points, it's about a very bloody civil war, a massive refugee crisis, and a horribly complex situation. I don't care if it was Russia's plan, it works out well for everybody.
 
And ultimately, I don't care who "saved face". This isn't about scoring political points, it's about a very bloody civil war, a massive refugee crisis, and a horribly complex situation.
Sadly, I think you are very wrong here. This is about a great many things, power, money and scoring points, the so-called "national interest", all being among them. But what this is not about, apart from rhetorics, is the bloody civil war or the refugees. It's about the "right" side winning - Assad for the Russians, the rebels for the US. How may people get displaced or killed, again, sadly, is of no interest to anyone making descisions in the international community.
 
To respond to all the above, I think there is a very good reason Obama took the airstrike issue to Congress. He had plenty of authority to authorize a strike in the immediate aftermath of the chemical weapons attack on August 21, but he didn't. Instead, he sent the issue to Congress 3 weeks before Congress came back to session. Then he went off to the G20 Summit. Then, conveniently, the Monday after the summit, the same day Congress came back to session, an offhand comment by Kerry sparks the current deal we have now.

I guarantee you that this supposedly spontaneous deal has been in the works for some time, at least since the G20 meeting, and that Obama was trying to keep the US from using air strikes while keeping the threat alive, hence taking it to Congress.


The White House's response to Kerry's remark afterwords doesn't seem to give credit to the plan you propose happened.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-10-2013/middle-eastern-promises---blue-bombs
 
I think that taking it to congress was his best option for saving face. He realized full well that congress would not authorize a war with Syria allowing the POTUS to basically say "I'm not going back on my red line threat, but my hands are tied by congress." He shouldn't have ran his mouth about his "red line" in the first place but that's beside the point.

As for the civil war, a lot of folks that support the rebels don't seem to give much thought to the fact that they have been waging an all-out war against the military for over two years now. These are not just some partisans throwing rocks from their windows. They had very powerful and wealthy backers even before the US got involved and started helping them. Personally, I just don't want another Egypt situation where we (the US) overthrow a government and help put the Muslim Brotherhood in power, only to have them overthrown down the road.
 
Sadly, I think you are very wrong here. This is about a great many things, power, money and scoring points, the so-called "national interest", all being among them. But what this is not about, apart from rhetorics, is the bloody civil war or the refugees. It's about the "right" side winning - Assad for the Russians, the rebels for the US. How may people get displaced or killed, again, sadly, is of no interest to anyone making descisions in the international community.

The situation in Syria is massively important in the geopolitical realm. Like it or not, the US has heavy interests in the stability of the Middle East, and if the Syria conflict continues and escalates much further, it has a great chance of destabilizing the region. Beside just the military aspect, millions of Syrians are pouring out into neighboring countries as refugees (2 million+ right now, over 3 mill by the end of the year, 4 mill more inside Syria), putting huge burdens on them. They can't sustain the influx of refugees for very long. Their economies will be stressed, demonstrations and crime will be (and are) on the rise. It is absolutely in the interest of the US to care about the people of Syria. The "right side" winning is only a part of it.

The White House's response to Kerry's remark afterwords doesn't seem to give credit to the plan you propose happened.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-10-2013/middle-eastern-promises---blue-bombs

I believe it was the State Department that responded afterwards? And like I said, the threat of a military strike was necessary pressure. It couldn't seem like Obama and Kerry had already folded before a plan had gone public, otherwise there wouldn't be any need to back the plan. It was necessary to keep Russia at the table.

I think that taking it to congress was his best option for saving face. He realized full well that congress would not authorize a war with Syria allowing the POTUS to basically say "I'm not going back on my red line threat, but my hands are tied by congress." He shouldn't have ran his mouth about his "red line" in the first place but that's beside the point.

As for the civil war, a lot of folks that support the rebels don't seem to give much thought to the fact that they have been waging an all-out war against the military for over two years now. These are not just some partisans throwing rocks from their windows. They had very powerful and wealthy backers even before the US got involved and started helping them. Personally, I just don't want another Egypt situation where we (the US) overthrow a government and help put the Muslim Brotherhood in power, only to have them overthrown down the road.

For those who didn't want the US intervening militarily, they should have been praising Obama for taking the issue to Congress. Like I said, Obama has the authority to strike with Congress' approval just as many Presidents in the past have. Taking the issue to Congress was pretty much Obama's way of saying "I don't actually want to do this but I need to keep the threat on the table, so this is my answer." I don't think at all it was a moment of weakness.

As for Egypt, which is OT, the US didn't do anything to overthrow the government. Hell, the WH wouldn't even side against Mubarak until it was clear he was going to be deposed. Syria and Egypt are almost completely different issues. As for keeping extremists out of the Syrian government should Assad fall, that's what the CIA is currently working on by supplying certain rebel factions with weapons.
 
The situation in Syria is massively important in the geopolitical realm. Like it or not, the US has heavy interests in the stability of the Middle East, and if the Syria conflict continues and escalates much further, it has a great chance of destabilizing the region. Beside just the military aspect, millions of Syrians are pouring out into neighboring countries as refugees (2 million+ right now, over 3 mill by the end of the year, 4 mill more inside Syria), putting huge burdens on them. They can't sustain the influx of refugees for very long. Their economies will be stressed, demonstrations and crime will be (and are) on the rise. It is absolutely in the interest of the US to care about the people of Syria. The "right side" winning is only a part of it.

It has been Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other U.S. allies that have been arming the rebels and promoting destabilization. Sunni experiments have been entering the county. What has the U.S. done to stop this?

I believe it was the State Department that responded afterwards? And like I said, the threat of a military strike was necessary pressure. It couldn't seem like Obama and Kerry had already folded before a plan had gone public, otherwise there wouldn't be any need to back the plan. It was necessary to keep Russia at the table.

All Russia wants is for the Islamic Pipeline to be constructed as planned. If the U.S. could guarantee that there would be Russian support, but the U.S. concern over Syria isn't peace, but the halt of their pipeline for ours.

For those who didn't want the US intervening militarily, they should have been praising Obama for taking the issue to Congress. Like I said, Obama has the authority to strike with Congress' approval just as many Presidents in the past have. Taking the issue to Congress was pretty much Obama's way of saying "I don't actually want to do this but I need to keep the threat on the table, so this is my answer." I don't think at all it was a moment of weakness.

It was a measure to have the airstrike and being able to shift the fallout to congress. Obama isn't the only war hawk in D.C. congress is maggoted with them.

I also don't see how Obama's words reflected the intent of avoiding air strikes.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/09/20407499-obama-on-the-fence-about-syria-strike-without-congress-approval?lite
 
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