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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Late Night Open Thread: Strange Days

Late Night Open Thread: Strange Days

by Anne Laurie|  September 17, 201412:11 am| 60 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Assholes

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Senior Rand Paul aide tells me he will take to the Senate floor tomorrow for an extended speech about the folly of arming the Syrian rebels.

— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) September 16, 2014

What kind of a world is this, where one might have to agree — however fleetingly! (he’ll have a different opinion by tomorrow) — with Senator AquaBuddah?

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60Comments

  1. 1.

    mai naem

    September 17, 2014 at 12:15 am

    This is more good news for John McCain.

    Seriously, Rand will probably walk this speech back within a couple of days. That’s how he rolls.

  2. 2.

    NotMax

    September 17, 2014 at 12:16 am

    Please don’t demean The Doors by coupling a song of theirs with Rand Paul ever again.

  3. 3.

    Violet

    September 17, 2014 at 12:23 am

    Was in a car a lot today on parent duty. Heard something about maybe sending ground troops back into Iraq. What’s that all about?

  4. 4.

    srv

    September 17, 2014 at 12:25 am

    It is not popular to have unpopular opinions. The road to Damascus is paved with hippies.

  5. 5.

    Violet

    September 17, 2014 at 12:26 am

    Senior Rand Paul aide tells me he will take to the Senate floor tomorrow for an extended speech about the folly of arming the Syrian rebels.

    I suspect by tomorrow the speech will be about the folly of whatever it is that President Obama is doing now.

  6. 6.

    some guy

    September 17, 2014 at 12:37 am

    even a blind squirrel can find a nut

  7. 7.

    Jaybird

    September 17, 2014 at 12:37 am

    Do we have an opinion on arming the Syrian Rebels yet or are we waiting to see who ends up where so we can make sure that we’re standing next to people we like as we accuse the opposition of opportunism?

  8. 8.

    srv

    September 17, 2014 at 12:43 am

    @Violet: Marty Dempsey says when Plan A fails, he’ll have a Plan B for President McCain or Obama.

    B as in boots.

    @Jaybird: The 8-Ball has been vague, too much mustard. Courtesy Bombing Approved, but Freedom Fighters keep signing deals with Team Evil.

  9. 9.

    Luthe

    September 17, 2014 at 12:45 am

    Remember Mr. Pierce’s rule of Pauls: they make sense for five minutes, but at the 5:01 mark the batshit creeps in.

  10. 10.

    some guy

    September 17, 2014 at 12:46 am

    now is the time to work with Syria, Iran, and Russia to crush ISIS.

  11. 11.

    Ruckus

    September 17, 2014 at 12:46 am

    Anne Laurie
    As has been noted, we won’t have to agree with Idiot Paul the Lessor for very long. In fact if you wait till morning I’d bet whatever he was going to say has changed, before he has a chance to actually say it. His pr/press person just doesn’t understand that one shouldn’t publish every little spark of whatever it is that goes on under a dead squirrel pelt.

  12. 12.

    srv

    September 17, 2014 at 12:52 am

    I guess he’s stopped golfing:

    Long criticized for keeping Congress at a distance, Obama is reaching out to lawmakers in private phone calls and Oval Office meetings.

    “Every person learns in office how to be a better president,” said Stephen Hadley, a Bush administration national security adviser who dined with Obama last week. “I can spend a long time saying President Obama should have been doing these things all along, but we are where we are, and the president is making the right steps now.”

    For Hadley and others in Washington, the best evidence of a changed president has been in the rollout of the Islamic State counteroffensive.

    Last week, Obama hosted a dinner at the White House to sell a bipartisan group of national security experts, including Hadley, on his plan. He then made the argument in Oval Office meetings and dozens of phone calls with members of Congress, including Representative Hal Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, whom he called for the first time since moving into the White House almost six years ago.

    In part, that may be necessary to reassure domestic and foreign allies of his determination after the president backtracked on plans to bomb Syria a year ago. Still, it places Obama’s political capital on the line and as a result helps shore up early public support should the operation encounter difficulties, Feaver said.

    Today’s visit to Centcom “provides powerful visuals and it draws attention to the idea that the military will be the long pole of the tent in the strategy,” he said. “It reinforces the notion that he’s committed to this, and that’s a notion that’s been in doubt.”

    It has also helped the White House win allies in Congress who will vote to authorize the Islamic State action, putting their political skin on the line, too.

    “The president’s request is to train vetted Free Syrian Army types to fight ISIL in Syria, and I, frankly, think the president’s request is a sound one,” House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said yesterday, referring to Islamic State by an alternate name. “There’s a lot more that we need to be doing, but there’s no reason for us not to do what the president asked us to do.”

  13. 13.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    September 17, 2014 at 12:54 am

    I thought the Pauline Free Market(tm) solution to terroristification was issue letter of marque and reprisal to mercenaries.

  14. 14.

    srv

    September 17, 2014 at 12:57 am

    @some guy:

    Onward, Christian Soldiers

    Paris and London, Asharq Al-Awsat—The fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) will likely take a decade, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal told an international summit in Paris on Monday devoted to dealing with the threat of the extremist organization.

    Speaking at the meeting—which drew representatives from 30 countries, including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and nine Arab states as well as Turkey—Prince Saud said: “The fight against terrorism will not end with one battle or in a short time. All the evidence suggests this confrontation will take a long time.”

    He added: “Therefore, we see the importance in the continuation of the coalition that will be formed to fight ISIS for at least 10 years so that we can guarantee the destruction of this repulsive phenomenon.”

  15. 15.

    R. Johnston

    September 17, 2014 at 1:07 am

    There’s no need to agree with Senator AquaBuddah on this one.

    Isolationist xenophobic cranks might appear to reach the right result on a lot of questions of interventionism, but they do it for very wrong and dangerous reasons that, if accepted and more broadly acted upon would actually be even worse than interventionism in cases like this. It’s like the old, insipid saying “a stopped clock is right twice a day.” No, much as a stopped clock is never right as it conveys no actual information about time, Rand Paul is never right as he conveys no actual information about reality. Clocks need to work to tell time, and politicians need to be reality based to be right. Seeing the right time in a stopped clock or the right policy in a Rand Paul is like seeing the face of Jesus in a piece of toast. It’s your brain doing pattern matching badly.

  16. 16.

    some guy

    September 17, 2014 at 1:20 am

    @srv:

    if you can’t trust a Saudi royal famly member speaking to the newspaper owned and run by his brother-in-law, then who can you trust?

  17. 17.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    September 17, 2014 at 1:20 am

    @R. Johnston: Nah, it wasn’t toast; it was a waffle.

  18. 18.

    max

    September 17, 2014 at 1:24 am

    @Violet: Heard something about maybe sending ground troops back into Iraq. What’s that all about?

    Dempsey was talking about drop-in special forces units for specific air targeting and perhaps some of that jump in and shoot ’em action maybe. I believe he was allowing for the contingencies of operations, not talking about sending in entire brigades. He got stomped by the White House though.

    The Waffentwerp Republic is arguing that Paul is just working out a realist version of foreign policy. It’s a decent point. Not a great point, but a decent one.

    @srv:

    He added: “Therefore, we see the importance in the continuation of the coalition that will be formed to fight ISIS for at least 10 years so that we can guarantee the destruction of this repulsive phenomenon.”

    That you funded and are in philosophical agreement with. SURE. Whatevs.

    max
    [‘I am beginning to think the Saudi monarchy’s true calling is selling used cars. Or peddling payday loans. Something like that.’]

  19. 19.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    September 17, 2014 at 1:32 am

    @srv: Are you willing to actually stake out a position on any issue rather than asserting some vaguely contrarian bullshit?

  20. 20.

    A Humble Lurker

    September 17, 2014 at 1:45 am

    @srv:

    I guess he’s stopped golfing:

    As opposed to clearing brush? A LOT more often?

  21. 21.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 17, 2014 at 1:59 am

    @Luthe: This.

    At 5:01 he’ll head off the rails into the tall grass, and we’ll all be wondering WTF he’s talking about.

  22. 22.

    srv

    September 17, 2014 at 2:01 am

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Um, those are called an excerpts, not an assertions.

    How many times do I have to say I stand with Obama on ISIS, while you Obamabadoniers stand with Rand Paul?

  23. 23.

    srv

    September 17, 2014 at 2:04 am

    @A Humble Lurker: A man with a chainsaw is more manly than a man with a club.

  24. 24.

    Violet

    September 17, 2014 at 2:14 am

    Speaking of Rand Paul, does anyone else think he doesn’t look healthy? In video and photos I’ve seen of him he doesn’t look like a well person. His face looks puffy, he’s got bags under his eyes or they look swollen. His skin looks very uneven in tone.

    If someone told me he had some illness or a substance abuse problem I’d believe them. He just looks unhealthy.

  25. 25.

    Ruckus

    September 17, 2014 at 3:08 am

    @Violet:
    His looks are now in sync with his thoughts. So, crappy on the inside, crappy on the outside.

  26. 26.

    Chris

    September 17, 2014 at 3:11 am

    @R. Johnston:

    Jolly good show, old man.

  27. 27.

    mai naem

    September 17, 2014 at 3:59 am

    @max: They do payday loans already – unless you’re muslim – then they can’t charge you interest because the Koran says you can’t charge somebody interest. I knew a Muslim woman who told me she wouldn’t buy a house because she would be be paying interest on a mortgage and she figured she was never going to have the cash to buy a house outright. Anyhoo, the Prince Waleed guy got Citibank’s ass out the pretty much guaranteed bankruptcy around the time of the financial crisis when he gave them a life line at something ridiculous like 13 percent interest. I remember Maria Bartiromo talking about how much of a bargain that was for Citibank.

  28. 28.

    AnotherBruce

    September 17, 2014 at 4:22 am

    @srv: If we only we could resurrect zombie Saddam Hussein to bring peace to the region. But really any zombie would do.

  29. 29.

    Chris

    September 17, 2014 at 4:35 am

    @some guy:

    It kills me that our “foreign policy” towards the Middle East (or, really, worldwide) has been incapable of even settling on a “lesser of two evils” (the way we did when we backed the Soviets against the Axis, and later the Chinese against the Soviets). As was said when dismissing the possibility of talking to Iran in the early 2000s, “we don’t talk to evil.”

    To pull back from ISIL for a sec – what is our biggest objective? Is it stopping Iran from getting the bomb? Okay. Then you’re going to have to work with Russia and China, and that’s going to mean horse-trading with them on some issues – for example, let them do what they want in Ukraine. Is that too high a price? Okay, but in that case, you’re going to have to live with the possibility that they might not help you on Iran/proliferation anymore, which means Iran is more likely to get the bomb.

    But, no. We have to address everything at once and fight all the bad guys at once, because reasons (of course how we define bad guys is something else… Saudi Arabia and Israel both get a pass, because reasons). And nowhere has this been killing us more than in the Middle East lately.

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Yeah, I never figured out how the original Paul ever got a reputation as a non-interventionist after saying that that was his solution to 9/11. “Issue a letter of marque and reprisal” means “hire a privateer,” which in 21st century speak means “instead of invading a country yourself, pay Blackwater to do it.” Would the war still have happened? Yes. Would the American people still have paid for it? Yes. Would a ton of Afghans still have died? Yes. So how, really, was Ron Paul “anti war” and what would have happened differently if he’d been sitting in the Oval Office instead of George the Lesser?

  30. 30.

    A Humble Lurker

    September 17, 2014 at 4:56 am

    @srv: Okay, I honestly can’t tell if you’re serious or not, but if you are I’d say I’d rather a guy who can do a job well than one who is ‘manly’ and that I’d consider Obama’s successes to be a hell of a lot ‘manlier’ than W’s….well….lack of successes.

  31. 31.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    September 17, 2014 at 5:25 am

    @A Humble Lurker: Yes but W looked sooo good in denim with his chainsaw cutting brush. Obummer golfs and wears a tan suit. Not manly optics and that’s all that counts in the Village.

  32. 32.

    Splitting Image

    September 17, 2014 at 5:42 am

    What kind of a world is this, where one might have to agree — however fleetingly! (he’ll have a different opinion by tomorrow) — with Senator AquaBuddah?

    Did you never find it odd that you agreed with Mitt Romney half the time? Comes with the territory when politicians are professional flip-floppers.

    As several people have pointed out, issuing letters of marque (a Ron Paul idea) is not isolationism. It is nothing more and nothing less than the privatization of war. There is nothing at all surprising about Republicans supporting that. America’s Greatest Defender of Liberty will denounce the federal government arming the rebels, because big gummint is bad, but he’ll leave open the possibility of private companies offering the sort of aid that the NRA gives to American patriots.

  33. 33.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 17, 2014 at 5:58 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Which is another reason, among a plethora of them, to annihilate the Village.

  34. 34.

    Chyron HR

    September 17, 2014 at 6:31 am

    Ah, fall. The time of year when the leaves turn colors, a brisk wind blows, and True Progressive Firepups swear up and down that Obama is going to start a war of imperial conquest in the Middle East, this time for real.

    Soon the wheel of the seasons will turn to winter, and we’ll shovel snow, gather ’round the yule log, and listen to True Progressive Firepups swearing up and down that Obama is going to announce Social Security cuts in his State of the Union address, this time for real.

  35. 35.

    Cervantes

    September 17, 2014 at 6:34 am

    @srv: Burma Shave.

  36. 36.

    Patricia Kayden

    September 17, 2014 at 6:44 am

    I agree with Rand on this one. I can’t see the logic of arming/training the Syrian rebels when America has had back luck in the past with training rebels, i.e., Osama Bin Laden. I have no problem with airstrikes against ISIL but that should be it. Plus, President Obama should wait for Congress to vote for any military action. Let Republican Congresspeople own what the US is doing in Iraq. I wouldn’t go out on a limb by myself which is what President Obama appears to be doing.

  37. 37.

    glocksman

    September 17, 2014 at 6:51 am

    What’s strange to me is that I’m having a late night/early morning The Shield marathon on Crackle.
    Crackle’s free and is ad supported.

    The strange thing is that 90% of the ads I’ve seen so far have been Katy Perry Covergirl ads.
    Now I don’t mind seeing Katy Perry parade around in leather and lace, but I wouldn’t have thought that Covergirl’s target market watched shows like The Shield all that much.

  38. 38.

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

    September 17, 2014 at 6:54 am

    Something about a blind sow and an acorn? Recently Jess The Boobie Ventura made noises about how useless & stupid Palin is. Its painful to me to see the sows stumble over the acorns because it makes them appear to be somehow useful. Just have to remember it is either an accident or a play act they were put up to.

  39. 39.

    Baud

    September 17, 2014 at 6:55 am

    Rand opposes arming the rebels because the rebels should buy their arms on the free market like everyone else.

  40. 40.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    September 17, 2014 at 6:57 am

    @R. Johnston:

    There’s no need to agree with Senator AquaBuddah on this one.

    Indeed.

    This kind of “Libertarian/Republican” contrarianism is nothing new. Pat Buchanan said some things about foreign policy and military intervention that made some sense at one time:

    E.g.

    Since the end of the Cold War, Buchanan has consistently been opposed to U.S. intervention and has advocated a conservative, anti-interventionist foreign policy.

    But taken as a whole his views are stupid and crazy.

    Rand Paul tries to never miss an opportunity to get in the news. That’s what he does. That doesn’t mean his positions should be taken seriously – the rest of his beliefs far outweigh the (very) few sensible positions he may have.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  41. 41.

    Anne Laurie

    September 17, 2014 at 7:04 am

    @glocksman:

    Now I don’t mind seeing Katy Perry parade around in leather and lace, but I wouldn’t have thought that Covergirl’s target market watched shows like The Shield all that much.

    Could be a coincidence, but Covergirl has been taking considerable heat for not dropping its NFL sponsorship. I can see an idiot ad-bot algorithm deciding that the spike in Covergirl+NFL searches indicate a new interest among cop-show watchers in midmarket makeup brands…

  42. 42.

    Tommy

    September 17, 2014 at 7:08 am

    @Baud: That is funny. Sad but true I fear. I mean who puts out to the press he has something to say. Just go say it.

  43. 43.

    Tommy

    September 17, 2014 at 7:17 am

    @Anne Laurie: I spent most of my adult life working in advertising. A few months ago I got rid of cable. Rocking a Roko and Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. I say this because advertising should be very targeted to me. It isn’t.

  44. 44.

    glocksman

    September 17, 2014 at 7:27 am

    @Tommy:

    Between my Chromecast and the ‘smart’ Blu-Ray player I got for $50 at Big Lots, I manage well enough.

  45. 45.

    Sherparick

    September 17, 2014 at 7:31 am

    This will be entertaining. I will expect to see John McCain respond with steam coming out of all his orifices and Lindsay Graham to reenact Bill Murray’s “Cats and Dogs Sleeping together” speech from Ghostbusters, with appropriate adjustments with ISIL/ISIS taking the “Gozer” role – appropriate when you think that so much of this demon mythology comes from Mesopotamia (ancient name for Iraq).

  46. 46.

    Tommy

    September 17, 2014 at 7:46 am

    @glocksman: Same here. All I’d add is Roku.

  47. 47.

    NonyNony

    September 17, 2014 at 7:50 am

    @Anne Laurie:

    Probably a coincidence. From what I’ve watched of Crackle the site (channel?) just has a few sponsors and they run their ads over and over and over again no matter what you watch.

    I can watch “The Prisoner” (which is about the only reason I installed Crackle on my Roku) and see the same ads everyone else watching Crackle gets. The ads aren’t targetted at all – Covergirl probably just bought a block of ads from Crackle (no idea how much they cost, but I bet they’re cheap. If they aren’t whoever is doing ad buys on Crackle needs their heads examined).

  48. 48.

    Cervantes

    September 17, 2014 at 7:58 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    You’re not forgetting Obama’s “mom jeans,” are you?

  49. 49.

    Cervantes

    September 17, 2014 at 7:59 am

    @glocksman: What is “Crackle”?

  50. 50.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    September 17, 2014 at 8:05 am

    Well, you have to start the UN-mandated scheme of Gun Control and Confiscation SOMEWHERE, amirite?

  51. 51.

    Sherparick

    September 17, 2014 at 8:26 am

    This will be entertaining. I will expect to see John McCain respond with steam coming out of all his orifices and Lindsay Graham to reenact Bill Murray’s “Cats and Dogs Sleeping together” speech from Ghostbusters, with appropriate adjustments with ISIL/ISIS taking the “Gozer” role – appropriate when you think that so much of this demon mythology comes from Mesopotamia (ancient name for Iraq).

    Really interesting blog at Daily Kos on this subject and how the Saudis are using McCain, Graham, and Neocons (and vice versa) for this new and endless war (and it is well to remember that for the Saudis and the Senate’s Bobbsey Twins for war, Damascus is just a stop along the way to war with Iran). http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/16/1330029/-Saudis-Lobbied-John-McCain-Lindsey-Graham-to-sell-War

    Also, although Mr. Assad and his cronies are odious, they represent and are supported by at least 1/2 the Syrian population that believes, with good reason, that it would be toast with Saudi Wahabist regime ruling Syria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Syria. This includes the Alawites, other Shia, Christians, Kurds (Sunni, but definitely non-Wahabi), Sufis, Secular Sunnis, and Druze. The fate of these populations under Wahabi regime, as ISIL demonstrates, would probably be extermination. However, this is something Ms. Mitchell, Mr. Todd, and Mr. Schaeffer and the rest of the media village never pose as questions to Graham and McCain, or how the Saudi and Qatari backers of ISIL will be held to account. Finally, I would point out to that the U.S. history in training groups and countries to fight for causes the individuals in those armies don’t believe in seems to go from disaster to disaster (with Korea perhaps being the only success story – see Vietnam, Nicaragua, Iraq, Afghanistan). Betting on doom for this Syrian adventure is pretty much a sure thing.

  52. 52.

    Aimai

    September 17, 2014 at 8:27 am

    @srv: depends on who he is clubbing .

  53. 53.

    chopper

    September 17, 2014 at 8:34 am

    @Chyron HR:

    That’s pretty much it.

  54. 54.

    brantl

    September 17, 2014 at 9:38 am

    @NotMax: How can anybody demean The Doors, more than The Doors did?

  55. 55.

    The Other Chuck

    September 17, 2014 at 12:03 pm

    @Cervantes: Free (ad-supported) movie streaming service. They have a couple okay series, but their movies are generally b-movie stuff that would be rejected by Mystery Science Theater.

  56. 56.

    Cervantes

    September 17, 2014 at 12:30 pm

    @The Other Chuck: I see. Thanks. Do they produce any of the stuff they stream?

  57. 57.

    boatboy_srq

    September 17, 2014 at 1:00 pm

    Rand Paul is like the weather in San Francisco: if you don’t like him, wait ten minutes.

    Is there some “libertarian” requirement for eternally changing situational ethics?

  58. 58.

    boatboy_srq

    September 17, 2014 at 1:09 pm

    @Sherparick: This was the first reason I advocated for petroindependence. Energy efficiency for its own sake is an excellent thing, and AGCC is to be halted as soon as possible; but with the planet dependent on OPEC for economic growth we’re all at the mercy of Wahhabism. Breaking the dependence on oil – preferably thoroughly enough that Europe, Russia and the US can use their remaining resources for plastics and other semi-durables and use nearly ANYTHING but oil for energy – will bankrupt these loons within a generation and remove (once and for all) the levers of power from their grasp.

  59. 59.

    boatboy_srq

    September 17, 2014 at 1:19 pm

    @Chris: Re: Enhanced Voting Techniques’ comments and the “letter of marque and reprisal” item of the elder Paul. Letters of Marque are a convenient step for a pol with national ambitions, a global agenda, and an avowed disinterest in committing his country to either. The US has already gone from conscription to volunteer armed forces, which in practice does little except put people otherwise Undesirable™ in harm’s way for the Good of the Nation™; privateering is the next step, where issuance of a single document (likely a poorly-overseen process) frees said nation from having to incur any additional expense whatever yet still puts citizens (this time belligerent citizens with a near-literal carte blanche to interpret national policy as they see fit) in the way of the same harm – which can very easily lead to significant escalation because The Bad Guys Are Killing Ahmurrcans™. It’s dishonest, disingenuous, dangerous and downright manipulative.

  60. 60.

    Chris

    September 18, 2014 at 4:16 am

    @boatboy_srq:

    Yeah, I’ve thought for some time that war-by-PMC was the logical next step after the all volunteer force, especially after Iraq and Afghanistan made us more war-cautious. ISIS seems like a perfect scenario to pioneer the tactic. Thankfully, I don’t think Obama’d go for it. (Depending on who succeeds him, though…)

    Draw parallels between this and the Roman Empire’s increasing reliance on barbarian mercenaries during its twilight years as you will…

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