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President Obama's International Visits from 2009 to 2016

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Re: President Obama's International Visits from 2009 to 2016

#71

Post by ckinnan »

kxd wrote: post #35
jankotek wrote: post #15

I hope Donald will stay at home. Every presidential visit brings multi-million city to a halt. It has similar effect as an earthquake, major fire or other natural disaster. It is recommended not open windows, there is risk of snipers. International airport is closed for several hours for a single airplane. And main roads are closed everyday while president is traveling. I still remember New Orleans. People could not…

Obama visited Ireland in 2011. I remember the Clinton visit in the '90s. Both shut the city down and increased the presence of security forces everywhere. I worked in the city centre at the time and it was chaos for a few days. Making matters worse was the fact that a week or two prior the Queen visited (arguably a more important state visit, for historical reasons). So in effect, for about three weeks, Dublin was he…

Fun fact -- the Reagan Library in California bought and sort of rebuilt the Irish tavern that the president visited in the 1980s. You can even buy a beer there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyJ5qJcHUNA

Re: President Obama's International Visits from 2009 to 2016

#72

Post by tomschlick »

brynx97 wrote: post #26
jankotek wrote: post #15

I hope Donald will stay at home. Every presidential visit brings multi-million city to a halt. It has similar effect as an earthquake, major fire or other natural disaster. It is recommended not open windows, there is risk of snipers. International airport is closed for several hours for a single airplane. And main roads are closed everyday while president is traveling. I still remember New Orleans. People could not…

Foreign leaders need to meet with other foreign leaders. If US president were to never leave the US, requesting that all foreign dignitaries visit him, that'd be great loss for US foreign policy. Y'all are all overstating the impact of visits on local communities too. It is done the way it is to minimize risk and expediency for both parties...

Yup, and usually closed routes are announced days in advance to give people the chance to make alternate plans if their day would be affected.

Re: President Obama's International Visits from 2009 to 2016

#73

Post by dbaupp »

almostApatriot1 wrote: post #69
cyberferret wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the fact that the President should probably not visit foreign cities unless absolutely necessary. In our case, President Obama (and I am a full supporter of his) visited our little town here in Australia (pop: ~100,000) back in 2011 to meet with our Prime Minister to ratify a deal to station about 10,000 US Marines in our town. He was on the ground here for about 6 hours. For the whole day (and most of t…

Sounds like an overreaction by your government tbh. Not Obama's fault. He comes to NYC fairly often, and there's usually more traffic in certain parts but 95% of people in the city wouldn't realize it.

Having a foreign leader (especially that of a superpower) hurt/killed on one's soil is likely to be particularly problematic, diplomatically.

Re: President Obama's International Visits from 2009 to 2016

#74

Post by zeroer »

67726e wrote: post #56
zeroer wrote: post #45

Chelsea Manning might be less free.

Well that might just happen if you, as a member of the military, steal documents from the military.

No doubt! But I'm getting downvoted for suggesting that the POTUS might have a smidge more freedom than a person in jail.

Re: President Obama's International Visits from 2009 to 2016

#75

Post by mindslight »

megous wrote: post #20
imron wrote: post #9

Here's another nifty visualisation - this time with drone strikes: http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/

I like the fact that the site includes all killed people. With 20% civilian casualties rate, the recent announcement of 50000 killed people in Syria/Iraq means US may have directly killed 10000 civilians in just the last two years there. https://airwars.org/ reports a lower number though. But theirs is a very conservative estimate. I wonder when will this escalation stop. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middl…

With so many people around the world needing killing, we should be thankful that Obama was in office. If a Republican was in power, the casualties would have been much worse, probably over ten times!!

Re: President Obama's International Visits from 2009 to 2016

#76

Post by gizmo385 »

zeroer wrote: post #74
67726e wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that might just happen if you, as a member of the military, steal documents from the military.

No doubt! But I'm getting downvoted for suggesting that the POTUS might have a smidge more freedom than a person in jail.

Partially because it isn't really relevant to the discussion at all. You're just ham-fisting an agenda into a separate conversation.

Re: President Obama's International Visits from 2009 to 2016

#77

Post by HillaryBriss »

jankotek wrote: post #15

I hope Donald will stay at home. Every presidential visit brings multi-million city to a halt. It has similar effect as an earthquake, major fire or other natural disaster. It is recommended not open windows, there is risk of snipers. International airport is closed for several hours for a single airplane. And main roads are closed everyday while president is traveling. I still remember New Orleans. People could not…

Westside traffic was often brought to a halt when Obama came to Los Angeles because he tended to visit some extremely wealthy entertainment figure's home (in Bel Air or Beverly Hills or Holmby Hills etc) in order to participate in a fund raiser.

It got to the point where a lot of LA commuters, who overwhelmingly supported Obama, would wince when they learned the presidential motorcade would be gumming up the traffic.

The LA Times typically reported the route so that LA commuters could stay the hell away from it.

Re: President Obama's International Visits from 2009 to 2016

#78

Post by 67726e »

gizmo385 wrote: post #76
zeroer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt! But I'm getting downvoted for suggesting that the POTUS might have a smidge more freedom than a person in jail.

Partially because it isn't really relevant to the discussion at all. You're just ham-fisting an agenda into a separate conversation.

Not to mention one could certainly debate the definition of "free world".

Certainly wonder why this is being downvoted. If you're in prison you're certainly in no part of a free world. Even given the definition of the free world as being the democratic world, are you really a part of it in prison?

Re: President Obama's International Visits from 2009 to 2016

#79

Post by Declanomous »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #65
erelde wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama went to Paris (I live in downtown Paris) several times I think, and there have been multiple reunions of numerous heads of state here, I don't remember any particular perturbations, other than 5 or 7 subway station blocked. The most notable was after the november 2015 attacks, there was some trouble because Obama kept changing* schedule. Not to downplay this, but maybe in some cities it is more doable than othe…

Yeah. Clearly some cities (like Paris) are more accustomed to receiving these sorts of visitors and, probably, have more permanent infrastructure in place to handle the visits with minimal interruption. I live in Washington, D.C. and, obviously, my city is not shut down whenever the president is in town. At most, we have to deal with a closed road and some loud sirens for a few minutes when the president is literally…

I live in Chicago, and the biggest inconvenience is when the weather is bad and they have to drive. That's honestly much more burdensome for people who live in the suburbs than people who live in the city itself. I've not even known Obama was in town until I rode my bike in to a checkpoint a block or so away from where he was eating lunch.

I honestly get much more annoyed when the secret service do their thing for presidential candidates, because the candidates tend to travel around a bit more and screw things up that way.

Re: President Obama's International Visits from 2009 to 2016

#80

Post by imron »

mindslight wrote: post #75
megous wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the fact that the site includes all killed people. With 20% civilian casualties rate, the recent announcement of 50000 killed people in Syria/Iraq means US may have directly killed 10000 civilians in just the last two years there. https://airwars.org/ reports a lower number though. But theirs is a very conservative estimate. I wonder when will this escalation stop. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middl…

With so many people around the world needing killing, we should be thankful that Obama was in office. If a Republican was in power, the casualties would have been much worse, probably over ten times!!

Except, for the parts of the timeline when there was a Republican in power, the casualties (and drone strikes) were significantly less.
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