6 ms·

What about the theory to which Trump alludes suggesting that Obama is somehow complicit in the continued existence of ISIS?

hueving 10y ago
That one is actually easier to swallow than others if the implication is just that Obama is soft on threats. Every leader can be considered 'complicit' in that regard.
- homogeneous 10y ago
  >if the implication is just that Obama is soft on threats My point is that he is suggesting something more sinister.
  - vonklaus 10y ago
    wouldn't be the first time the U.S. has armed an ostensibly rogue power in the region.
    - homogeneous 10y ago
      Sinister meaning Obama is sympathetic to ISIS and the terrorist ideology.
      - pvnick 10y ago
        I don't think anybody is implying that.
        kbenson 10y ago
        Hmm, that's the interesting thing about implication, it's can be very ambiguous. If you leave something ambiguous knowing a small minority will misinterpret the real implication for something worse, and accept that as beneficial and make no move to clarify that point, are you implying that as well?
        krapp 10y ago
        Trump seemed to imply it on a recent interview, watch it here[0]. It is vague, granted, but I really can't imagine what other inference we (or Trump's supporters) are meant to make from that. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0qvCYSK5wA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0qvCYSK5wA
        elif 10y ago
        I think the obvious implication here is that Obama would be using the climate of terrorism for unrelated political ends... That he would allow the fire to burn because he benefits from the heat, not at all that he has an ideological coherence with their movement.
        krapp 10y ago
        I'd be willing to accept that interpretation, if he hadn't also mentioned how Obama "can't even mention the words 'radical Islam'." And if Trump hadn't posted a tweet supporting the claim by a Brietbart article (which has been debunked) that the Obama administration supported ISIS financially[0], specifically claiming that he (Trump) "was right" about what the media says he was "insinuating" about Obama: An: Media fell all over themselves criticizing what DonaldTrump "may have insinuated about @POTUS." But he's right: https://t.co/bIIdYtvZYw — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2016 What insinuations has Trump apparently made, that he feels have been vindicated by an article accusing the Obama administration of having funded ISIS? I may be unreasonably biased, but I don't think Trump is trying to paint a picture of Obama as a mere political opportunist here. And of course, it's always worth pointing out, Trump is a birther. He believes Obama isn't even legally fit to be president, that he faked his birth certificate and that his administration has been covering up what essentially amounts to a coup by a foreign power. He has a long and storied history of implying Barack Obama is a Muslim[2] (as if somehow that's a crime in and of itself.) Note in the CNN article, the following exchange between Trump and a supporter at a campaign rally: "We have a problem in this country. It's called Muslims," a man attending Trump's rally in Rochester, New Hampshire, said. "You know our current president is one. You know he's not even an American." "We need this question," Trump said, chuckling. "This is the first question." The man continued: "We have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That's my question: When can we get rid of them?" "We're going to be looking at a lot of different things," Trump said. "You know, a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening. We're going to be looking at that and many other things." One could interpret that as simply dismissing the crank views of a paranoid voter as diplomatically as possible - if one were not aware of the beliefs Donald Trump actually held regarding the president's religion and legal status, and if Donald Trump were the sort of person to be diplomatic about anything. Either Trump doesn't consider that an unreasonable question, or for some reason he can't bring himself to admit how unreasonable it is openly, because he wants to court the votes of people who consider it reasonable. He said later he didn't entirely hear the question, but that doesn't seem likely given the context of his response. [0]http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/06/14/hillary-clinton-received-secret-memo-stating-obama-admin-support-for-isis/ http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/06/14/h... [1]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/743075154507489280 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/74307515450748928... [2]http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/18/politics/trump-obama-muslim-birther/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/18/politics/trump-obama-muslim-bi...
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- krapp 10y ago
  Unfortunately, the implication is that the Obama administration supports ISIS[0], and that Obama himself is actually sympathetic to their views[1]. Donald Trump, remember, doesn't even believe Obama is an American citizen, or legally qualified to be president to begin with. Believing Obama's a terrorist sympathizer isn't a stretch, if you already believe he's a crypto-Muslim plant conspiring to cover up his own illegitimacy. [0]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/743075154507489280 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/74307515450748928... [1]http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/06/15/3788809/donald-trump-claims-obama-secretly-supports-isis-cites-debunked-conspiracy-theory-proof/ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/06/15/3788809/donald-...
  - venomsnake 10y ago
    I am not advocating for that devil, but the events from the recent years - active encouragement of replacement of secular government with Islamist ones. Deal with Iran that cements the Islamic revolution, support for Erdogan while he makes Turkey a theocracy, giant arms sales to Saudi Arabia, drone strikes that are effective Taliban and ISIS recruitment tools, arming Iraq army which only strategic move is to drop their gear for ISIS to use and flee. Either there is strong support for islamisation of the middle east or the recent administrations have no idea and clue what are they doing.
    - krapp 10y ago
      >Either there is strong support for islamisation of the middle east or the recent administrations have no idea and clue what are they doing. They probably have no idea and clue what they're doing. I still remember being promised we would be welcomed into Baghdad as liberators, like Christ being led into Jerusalem.
    - bhauer 10y ago
      I enjoy criticism of our current administration as much as anyone, but I'm going to go with Hanlon's Razor and guess the latter: they have no clue what effective foreign policy looks like. I suspect that simply doing nothing at all (leaving all pre-existing policies and agreements in place) would have been more effective than what we have done. At least it would have appeared consistent and predictable.
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  That's not the implication, though. The implication is that Obama is a secret Muslim extremist and is actively collaborating with terrorists. "Soft on threats" is just the dog whistle.
oh_sigh 10y ago
Was it continued, or initial existence of ISIS?
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  Does it matter? Either one is nonsense.
  - oh_sigh 10y ago
    Why? The US has a long and storied history of supporting one group of people, but once they come into power un-supporting them.
akhilcacharya 10y ago
Or, for that matter, that he faked his birth in Hawaii.
gspetr 10y ago
> Obama is somehow complicit in the continued existence of ISIS? He said so himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrfjhgBPKg8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrfjhgBPKg8

hueving 10y ago

That one is actually easier to swallow than others if the implication is just that Obama is soft on threats. Every leader can be considered 'complicit' in that regard.

homogeneous 10y ago
>if the implication is just that Obama is soft on threats My point is that he is suggesting something more sinister.
- vonklaus 10y ago
  wouldn't be the first time the U.S. has armed an ostensibly rogue power in the region.
  - homogeneous 10y ago
    Sinister meaning Obama is sympathetic to ISIS and the terrorist ideology.
    - pvnick 10y ago
      I don't think anybody is implying that.
      - kbenson 10y ago
        Hmm, that's the interesting thing about implication, it's can be very ambiguous. If you leave something ambiguous knowing a small minority will misinterpret the real implication for something worse, and accept that as beneficial and make no move to clarify that point, are you implying that as well?
      - krapp 10y ago
        Trump seemed to imply it on a recent interview, watch it here[0]. It is vague, granted, but I really can't imagine what other inference we (or Trump's supporters) are meant to make from that. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0qvCYSK5wA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0qvCYSK5wA
        elif 10y ago
        I think the obvious implication here is that Obama would be using the climate of terrorism for unrelated political ends... That he would allow the fire to burn because he benefits from the heat, not at all that he has an ideological coherence with their movement.
        krapp 10y ago
        I'd be willing to accept that interpretation, if he hadn't also mentioned how Obama "can't even mention the words 'radical Islam'." And if Trump hadn't posted a tweet supporting the claim by a Brietbart article (which has been debunked) that the Obama administration supported ISIS financially[0], specifically claiming that he (Trump) "was right" about what the media says he was "insinuating" about Obama: An: Media fell all over themselves criticizing what DonaldTrump "may have insinuated about @POTUS." But he's right: https://t.co/bIIdYtvZYw — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2016 What insinuations has Trump apparently made, that he feels have been vindicated by an article accusing the Obama administration of having funded ISIS? I may be unreasonably biased, but I don't think Trump is trying to paint a picture of Obama as a mere political opportunist here. And of course, it's always worth pointing out, Trump is a birther. He believes Obama isn't even legally fit to be president, that he faked his birth certificate and that his administration has been covering up what essentially amounts to a coup by a foreign power. He has a long and storied history of implying Barack Obama is a Muslim[2] (as if somehow that's a crime in and of itself.) Note in the CNN article, the following exchange between Trump and a supporter at a campaign rally: "We have a problem in this country. It's called Muslims," a man attending Trump's rally in Rochester, New Hampshire, said. "You know our current president is one. You know he's not even an American." "We need this question," Trump said, chuckling. "This is the first question." The man continued: "We have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That's my question: When can we get rid of them?" "We're going to be looking at a lot of different things," Trump said. "You know, a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening. We're going to be looking at that and many other things." One could interpret that as simply dismissing the crank views of a paranoid voter as diplomatically as possible - if one were not aware of the beliefs Donald Trump actually held regarding the president's religion and legal status, and if Donald Trump were the sort of person to be diplomatic about anything. Either Trump doesn't consider that an unreasonable question, or for some reason he can't bring himself to admit how unreasonable it is openly, because he wants to court the votes of people who consider it reasonable. He said later he didn't entirely hear the question, but that doesn't seem likely given the context of his response. [0]http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/06/14/hillary-clinton-received-secret-memo-stating-obama-admin-support-for-isis/ http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/06/14/h... [1]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/743075154507489280 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/74307515450748928... [2]http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/18/politics/trump-obama-muslim-birther/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/18/politics/trump-obama-muslim-bi...
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
krapp 10y ago
Unfortunately, the implication is that the Obama administration supports ISIS[0], and that Obama himself is actually sympathetic to their views[1]. Donald Trump, remember, doesn't even believe Obama is an American citizen, or legally qualified to be president to begin with. Believing Obama's a terrorist sympathizer isn't a stretch, if you already believe he's a crypto-Muslim plant conspiring to cover up his own illegitimacy. [0]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/743075154507489280 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/74307515450748928... [1]http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/06/15/3788809/donald-trump-claims-obama-secretly-supports-isis-cites-debunked-conspiracy-theory-proof/ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/06/15/3788809/donald-...
- venomsnake 10y ago
  I am not advocating for that devil, but the events from the recent years - active encouragement of replacement of secular government with Islamist ones. Deal with Iran that cements the Islamic revolution, support for Erdogan while he makes Turkey a theocracy, giant arms sales to Saudi Arabia, drone strikes that are effective Taliban and ISIS recruitment tools, arming Iraq army which only strategic move is to drop their gear for ISIS to use and flee. Either there is strong support for islamisation of the middle east or the recent administrations have no idea and clue what are they doing.
  - krapp 10y ago
    >Either there is strong support for islamisation of the middle east or the recent administrations have no idea and clue what are they doing. They probably have no idea and clue what they're doing. I still remember being promised we would be welcomed into Baghdad as liberators, like Christ being led into Jerusalem.
  - bhauer 10y ago
    I enjoy criticism of our current administration as much as anyone, but I'm going to go with Hanlon's Razor and guess the latter: they have no clue what effective foreign policy looks like. I suspect that simply doing nothing at all (leaving all pre-existing policies and agreements in place) would have been more effective than what we have done. At least it would have appeared consistent and predictable.
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
That's not the implication, though. The implication is that Obama is a secret Muslim extremist and is actively collaborating with terrorists. "Soft on threats" is just the dog whistle.

oh_sigh 10y ago

Was it continued, or initial existence of ISIS?

PhasmaFelis 10y ago
Does it matter? Either one is nonsense.
- oh_sigh 10y ago
  Why? The US has a long and storied history of supporting one group of people, but once they come into power un-supporting them.

akhilcacharya 10y ago

Or, for that matter, that he faked his birth in Hawaii.

gspetr 10y ago

> Obama is somehow complicit in the continued existence of ISIS? He said so himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrfjhgBPKg8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrfjhgBPKg8