[Official] Do you support military strikes against Syria?

More good news for the interventionists:

AP poll: Most Americans oppose strike on Syria

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-poll-most-americans-oppose-strike-syria-172836279--politics.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — Only 1 in 5 Americans believe that failing to respond to chemical weapons attacks in Syria would embolden other rogue governments, rejecting the heart of a weeks-long White House campaign for U.S. military strikes, an Associated Press poll concluded Monday.

The poll of 1,007 adults nationwide found that most Americans oppose even a limited attack on Syria — likely with cruise missiles — despite Obama administration warnings that inaction would risk national security and ignore a gruesome humanitarian crisis. And a slim majority — 53 percent — fear that a strike would lead to a long-term U.S. military commitment in Syria.

Nobody's buying it, guys.

 

It could just be that Putin and Russia actually have real interests in the region. Putin doosn't have to worry about looking strong.

Meanwhile for Obama and even many of our Dems amd Repubs it is just about domestic politics. For Obama it is just about his silly line in the sand and looking strong and he has no real desire to start a war. One country attacking another with missiles is War

 

Actually this is a good thing. It should not be a clean pretty pr nice decision to send America to war when we are not attacked and the benefits if ant are not clear

 

Care to define what those real interests are? I fully acknowledge that Putin does in fact have real interests - but I'm curious to hear you say what said interests, since clearly the Russian interests are "real", while the American interests are not.

 

I am talking specifically about Syria. Russia has a Medterranean port of call. Syria is not our ally nor is it ever likely to be as long as we support Israel keeping their territory in the Golan Heights

We are allegedly going to war in Syria out of a love of inter national law though as with Israeli occupation a d I numerous other cAses we are selective in our support

We do have interests in the Middle East in general which are ill served by our militarism there which just makes those folk hate us. And no they don't hate us just because we are kind and free as per Dubya and gang

That this Syria war thing is mainly driven by domestic politics is shown by the huge number of war loving Repuplicans all of a sudden voting against war

Similarly with some liberal Dems supporting the proposed war

 

zerohedge ‏@zerohedge 2h
RUSSIA, SYRIA HAVE ONUS TO SHOW OFFER IS CREDIBLE, HAGUE SAYS. So 3-4 YouTube clips should be sufficient

 

How the hell do we afford to spend $$ to bomb other countries when we are in debt of trillions of dollars is beyond me

 

Except that isn't true. I've posted multiple possible scenarios in this thread.

Because we've gone and back and forth multiple times and would just be repeating the same things over and over again. There's nothing new for either of us to share until we see what actually happens at this point.

Shooting missiles <> occupying another country. I don't see why this is so difficult to understand. The whole mission creep thing is nonsense. What if Iran attacks US interests in Iraq based on us threatening sanctions on them? Should we not do that either? If you refuse to consider any action that might ever involve ground troops then we need to remove ourselves completely from Middle East and everywhere else.

That's amusing, since I didn't actually oppose going into Iraq, though I did oppose the way we did it. But since your world is so black and white and have no capacity to differentiate between shades of gray, I can see why this would be impossible for you to see.

What exactly are either of us wrong about? No action has been taken, so it's impossible to judge anything here yet. But I did like this snippet:

...

You claimed that to secure WMD in Syria. the the US would have to put boots on the ground. Now - specifically because of the threats of missile strikes - there's an opportunity to both secure and destroy all his WMDs without lifting a finger. And since the #1 goal of US intervention was to stop Syria from using WMDs, that seems like (if it happens - big IF at this point) a nice endgame where we achieve 100% of our goal. And yet, you automatically decide the US is getting played? Perhaps it's Russia who found an out from their own blustering about defending Syria in case of a US attack, when it realized the US showed no interest in backing down and they were going to look lame after all their talk and then not doing anything.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/10/syria-crisis-france_n_3898562.html

Now France is tightening the screws and putting Russia in a bind. UN Resolution basically putting Russia and Syria's words on paper, and backing it with military strikes if they don't comply. It puts Russia in a position of either agreeing to military strikes if things go south, or walking back its offer.

 

If they do this deal, are the rebels screwed? They might not get gassed, but having a UN resolution that is centered on removing chemical weapons makes it harder for signatories to intervene for more ambitious goals (like removing Assad). Not that anyone wants to, as the past couple of years and multiple public polls clearly show. But, Assad doesn't seem to need chemical weapons to put down the rebellion at this point, he just needs everybody else to stay out of it. So, he surrenders the weapons, shells the crap out of rebels with conventional weapons, mops up with secret police, and rules until it's time for his son to take over. Is that the end game?

 

Yes and no. It certainly gives Assad an edge in the civil war - but he has shown no actual ability to "win" thus far. He's just holding a stalemate - I'm not sure that changes. But one wildcard is how the war plays out - you'd now have UN personnel on the ground there, which means you have people that can see exactly what's going on, even if they aren't involved. It may change the nature of the war, if a lot of it currently involves killing civilians (by either side). TPM puts this potential scenario well:

But here’s the additional factor - and a positive one. Having some sort of UN-sanctioned force, armed or not, come into your country in the middle of a Civil War and secure parts of your military arsenal amounts to a form of international receivership, albeit a relatively minor one. For a regime that rules by force that’s deep blow to legitimacy and the morale of regime supporters, particularly, I would think, in the Army. It also likely emboldens neighbors. Once that kind of internationalization takes place, other kinds of atrocities also come up for review. Yes, it prevents a US military strike (which wouldn’t have engendered the regime itself anyway). But it fundamentally weakens Assad’s regime and at a minimum puts the conflict on a path to a negotiated or imposed settlement. There’s a reason countries fight internationalization of conflicts and minor tramplings of sovereignty. It’s a usually a one way trip. You don’t go back.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/09/why_its_big.php?ref=fpblg

 

Putin is cool. He's led Russia with a firm hand and is exposing America's hokey-pokey plan.

Spoiler

 

I am not absolutely certain on this but it looks like Kerry's comments came before the Russian proposal. Kerry made his comments at a press conference in London with the British Foreign Secretary and was reported at around 7:30AM EDT. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/09/09/syria-kerry-hague/2784809/

The Russian proposal was reported at about 11:30AM EDT from talks in Moscow from Syria's Foreign minister. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/09/syria-russia-proposal-chemical-weapons_n_3894302.html

It does appear that Kerry's comments predate by a few hours the Russian proposal. Now it is possible that the Russian proposal was already in the works prior to Kerry's comments and that it had been communicated already to Kerry but I am not seeing the evidence for that.

As I said I agree that the Admin. hasn't handled this well but given the timing of this offer it does appear like Kerry and the Admin. might've outfoxed Putin with Putin scrambling to try to broker a deal to avoid strikes.

 

Every government on Earth borrows to spend. Whether we are debt-free, or trillions in debt won't change that.

 

It seems pretty clear to me that Putin and Assad are worried that Obama's comments are not just bluster and that with or without the Congressional vote they fear Obama will act. Russia has huge interests in Syria and doesn't want to risk those and making a gesture like this potentially heads off strikes and makes Russia look like a peacemaker in the eyes of the world. This is at a time when Russia is suffering from negative PR regarding jailing dissidents and its anti-LGBT law.

What is unclear is what did Kerry know when he made his comments and did the Russians know ahead of time Kerry would make those statements. Given that Kerry's statements were made a few hours before the Russian Syrian statement it looks like they are responding to Kerry and not vice versa.

 

Yeah, seriously. Twerking girl's pants were on fire! Assad regime gassed his own people!

What's not to believe on YouTube!

 

Actually, our freedom and culture is exactly why they "hate" us. It hasn't changed for over 1,000 years. While it is not "freedom" per se that they despise, it is very much our way of life, our culture that they despise. Islam is not friendly to the West. It isn't going to change until the religion goes through a revolution, similar to Christianity. It's not really hate though, it's more of ignorance. Their culture (Islam) until recently taught that anything outside of the Islamic realm was the land of infidels, to be ignored. The history, geography, politics, etc. everything was thought inferior and therefore unnecessary to know. That has changed with advancements in technology and literacy rates, but it is still very much the custom of the Middle East.

From what I have seen, most people don't hate Americans. They hate what we stand for, in their eyes -- imperialism. Interference in THEIR lives.

Prior to the rise of Islamic terrorism in the 70s, I would have advocated a policy of completely ignoring the Middle East (if we ignored our need for ME oil at the time), but our security depends on keeping a watchful eye on the region. Us going away or ignoring what's happening isn't going to stop them from breeding more hatred towards America in the future. Removing/defeating Israel is not going appease them, it is a step towards an end-goal -- Islamic domination.

 

If I can follow up on Major's post outside forces are already playing a large role in this war and it is in many ways a proxy war of various Middle East interests.
The rebels have funding and support from the Sunni Gulf countries who oppose the Iran / Syria / Hezbollah / Shiite block. The rebels also have a heavy Al Qaeda contingent that opposes the secular dictatorships and Shiites and is drawing in fighters from as far away as Pakistan. Al Qaeda is also bringing in experienced fighters who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and is one of the reasons why that faction is doing so well compared to other rebel factions. Israel has also stepped in and launched bombing raids against Assad facilities while Turkey has exchanged artillery fire with Assad forces.

On Assad's side the momentum didn't really shift until Hezbollah forces from Lebanon stepped in to fight for Assad. Iran has at least diplomatically backed Assad and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were materially supporting Assad. At the same time Russia has continued to arm Assad. Even though Assad at the start had an edge in weapons it is not clear that Assad could win without outside support from Hezbollah and Russia.

So basically from the beginning this hasn't just been an internal conflict in Syria but one where outside forces are playing a major role. If this proposal passes it will likely just return things to the previous situation prior to a month ago when chemical weapons were used with momentum on Assad's side. That doesn't mean though that other groups like the gulf states won't step up help to the rebels. Either way a quick victory by either force even if chemical weapons are off the table seem unlikely.

One possibility that Major mentioned is that a UN presence with greater outside scrutiny might alter the battlefield. One hopeful possibility is that it forces both sides to the negotiating table but that is very unclear right now and neither side seems willing to negotiate with each other.

 

It is oil.

It (the clash between your 'freedom' and their dignity) won't change until their oil is depleted.

 

No it shouldn't be a PR decision but you have to consider though what impetus does Russia and Syria have to make any offer unless they were afraid of strikes?

I am not one to enter war likely and I agree that sending missiles is an act of war but diplomacy can only go so far without anything actually backing it up. What we are seeing here is brinkmanship between the Obama Admin., the Syrians and the Russians. Assad's regime pretty much called Obama's bluff regarding "red lines" and now Obama is challenging them back with the threat of strikes.