[Official] Do you support military strikes against Syria?

Lol

Bull. You say you follow no one blindly but you are a true sheep and do follow blindly. Know how I know this? Because you said the true sheep mantra.

I am a Democrat

You may think you are politically astute and debate the merits and may even have some issues with your party but at the end of the day when you are standing in that voting booth you will vote Democrat. You will vote who the national party designates who they say for you to and the state slate is the same the state party tells you this is who you are going to vote for you will blindly vote that politician because you are a Democrat. A Sheep.

Republicans. Scratch out Democrats and replace it with Republicans and it applies for you.

I do respect you because you say it outright and say you are a Democrat though. Many come and try to wishy wash their reasons and some even say they are Independents. Independents will vote for which party will pay the most for their votes. They are pathetic.

 

Yesh, don't put too much money on Pelosi. She's not exactly going to bat for this.

Pelosi also confirmed she will not be whipping whatever version of a use-of-force resolution the House ultimately considers.

“It’s not anything you whip,” Pelosi said. “I’m not whipping. I’m not persuading on this.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/nancy-pelosi-syria-96292.html

If Pelosi isn't going to try and get her caucus to line up on this, then it isn't likely to happen. There's no way it passes unless the Dems are of one voice on this, and so far that is not remotely the case.

That would be the best-case scenario, really. Which of course begs the question why bother in the first place... The thing with war is that the other guy always gets a say, too. What if Assad says screw you and launches another attack after such minor strikes? Or what if Hizbollah/Iran go into action? There are WAAAY too many things that could go wrong here, and the likelihood is probably greater that something goes wrong than it doesn't.

Really? You forget 2008? You think that war fatigue had nothing to do with that? An even better example would be 2006 - right when things were at their worst in Iraq, the Republicans lost the House and Senate in a massive sweep. You think foreign policy had nothing to do with that? I beg to differ.

If we get sucked into a quagmire in Syria - which is very possible if we intervene, regardless of our original limited intentions - then I guarantee you that it will drag down alot of people in Washington - starting with POTUS's party. Anyone who voted for it will have to defend their vote. Daily. There are alot of Dems who otherwise want to back POTUS but are voting against it for that very reason.

I agree almost 100%, but I would frankly be very surprised if he went ahead with a strike after being denied AUMF by Congress. Sure, lots of POTUS's have pursued military action without Congress's permission. It's more the norm than seeking permission. But name the last time a POTUS was explicitly denied that authorization but went ahead with it anyway? Such an action would shake the separation of powers to the core and cause a major constitutional crisis. THEN you would probably be looking at impeachment hearings, and not just BS ones like Clinton had to endure.

Not only would it be shocking to see that happen from a separation of powers perspective, but it would leave POTUS completely, hopelessly, 100% exposed to suffer total blame for every single thing that followed. I am pretty sure he wants to share the blame, not hoard it all for himself.

I wouldn't expect him to strike if Congress denies the AUMF. But if he did... Interesting times we would be living in if that happened.

 

OK

If Obama wants to go into Syria he will get it. He has to do it. The Democrats will go along. Pelosi is safe and has nothing to fear. Reid just won election to a 6 year term so he is safe and can withstand future as voters have short term memories and will love the pork he will bring them after he musters the votes.

How will he get the votes. The Dems will be fed at the trough of pork until their aversion to the war subsides. I seen this before. The Republicans did the same thing to get their resolutions. The Democrats have done it before to get theirs.

For Obama to send all this hardware to punish Syria and for him to have to pull them back would be a huge upset and not just to him but this country. I would love for them to finally stop this madness but they can't and won't.

 

Maybe you're right. I don't think so. I think it fails in the House. The current whip counts are simply insurmountable at this point, IMHO.

Pelosi is safe. Her colleagues are not. Every single one of them is up for reelection next year, and most of them don't live in SF. Reid is not too relevant; I think he probably has 60 votes given that he has a few repubs willing to go for it.

I heard what Bolton said earlier today. But buying people off has its limits. Alot of those congressmen want to keep their jobs next year, and they will not do so if they vote for this and it goes badly. Again, I think it fails in the House. Too many Dems and too many Republicans oppose it. In fact I can't remember opposition this bipartisan to anything at all in the Obama era (except, of course, for his ridiculous budget proposals). He's finally united Congress... Against his own policy.

Really, don't hold your breath. The interventionists have a very, very steep uphill battle on this, and those on the fence know that ultimately they will be held accountable for it next year by the American people, who most definitely are not cool with the idea. And unlike bad budgets and stupid laws, messy wars don't tend to be forgotten when ballot time rolls around.

 

OK

I wish you were right but I am sure you are wrong. Yes the members do come up for election but they need money to run. You and I know that the National and state party will fund or not any good little party member. If the pork fails then the party will just go to each member and show them the new add that will be shown at their next election. One where they will show massive gassed bodies and relatives weeping. Then an announcer will come on and say what ever member here voted to not avenge this monstrosity of mankind and went against our commander and chief. Then an actor portraying his next Democrat opponent will appear and shake his head. The announcer will then say how this next member will never turn his back against this and will always do the right thing. Again the visual will show the burial and the relatives screaming for vengeance.

Then the party rep will say how they will have a new opponent and he will be fully funded by the party and he will get none. He will lose his seat regardless and be seen as heartless at the same time. Then Pelosi or Reid will show up and hold his list of pork he has asked for and ask which of them and how much of it he wanted and hurry as he/her had others to get into the fold.

Case closed. We are at war again. If Obama wants and he wants. It is like a broken record and history repeats itself no matter if the only two parties do it.

 

LOL, the case is closed after the vote, not before.

We will disagree on this one. I am as confident of my position as you seem to be of yours.

I'd advise stepping back and turning off the TV. It's all trash and clouds judgment, hinders thoughtful analysis. They can pepper the airwaves with pics of dead bodies all they want (they've been doing it now for over a week), POTUS can make an Oval Office speech, they can try and bribe and threaten everyone on the hill, it still doesn;t change the basic calculus that the overwhelming majority of the American people don;t want this to happen. There are alot of things they can ignore, but bipartisan consensus on the part of the American people against a military operation is not one of them.

This guy has said it best:

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2013/09/lawmakers_who_support_syria_st.html

The American people will have the last word on this one. For once.

 

Lol

Trust me on this. I don't watch the political trash on TV. It is bunk as long as we have two parties only and they are essentially the same. We have no choices here. You seem to think we do and that is OK.

Obama wants this war we will have war. He wants it or he wouldn't have sent the Hardware. Follow the money.

 

Non-intentional trolls are the saddest kind. Thanks for bringing me down.

 

Lol

Wasn't trying to bum you out or troll. Just saying what I thought. Y'all continue the Kumbaya fest.

 

That is what is so depressing. How war crazed the bipartisan mainstream consensus is.

Very seldom if ever have we accomplished one clearly good thing in the Middle East by our wars. Getting Bin Laden was about it, but that could have been accomplished by negotiating with the Taliban who we are now negotiating with again after killing and torturing many innocent Iraqis.

 

[Official] Is Deja vu the same as entering a clone thread?

 

The way we are being manipulated on the Syrian war is so "deja vu all over again"


Grayson, however, says "the claim has been made that that information was completely mischaracterized."

He points to an article published by The Daily Caller that alleges the communications actually showed Syrian officers were surprised by the alleged chemical weapon attack. The communications, according to unnamed sources paraphrased in article, were intercepted by Israeli intelligence and "doctored so that it leads a reader to just the opposite conclusion."

[READ: U.S. Releases Syria Chemical Weapons Report]


"What they say in The Daily Caller is that [intercepted communications] would lead one to the opposite conclusion," Grayson said. "I don't know if it's right or wrong, [but] there's a very simple way to find out, that's for the administration to show me and other members of Congress" translated transcripts of the intercepts, he said.

Members of Congress are "not being given any of the underlying elements of the intelligence reports," according to Grayson. He's not sure if the information will come before the votes on a proposed strike next week

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/wa...5/alan-grayson-syria-intelligence-manipulated

 

Take care not to cut yourself on that edge, mate.

 

Sadly, I tend to agree.

 

[Official] 'Mericans are not the only ones manipulating the geopolitical landscape.

 

Flashback:

Sept. 2, 2012, YORK, Pa. (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that Republican rival Mitt Romney is “ready to go to war in Syria and Iran” while hurting the middle class.

The warning came during a campaign stop in York, Pa., designed to promote President Barack Obama’s economic policies among white, working-class voters. The thrust of Biden’s pitch has been that America is digging out from the 2008 economic collapse and that Romney would take the country backward. But Biden, a foreign policy heavyweight, also cautioned voters that Romney would adopt policies that favor confrontation over cooperation.

“He said it was a mistake to end the war in Iraq and bring all of our warriors home,” Biden said of Romney. “He said it was a mistake to set an end date for our warriors in Afghanistan and bring them home. He implies by the speech that he’s ready to go to war in Syria and Iran.”

Biden made the claim about Syria and Iran without offering specifics; his campaign did not immediately respond to a request for details and he did not use similar language on Syria and Iran at a later stop in Green Bay, Wis.​

 

The one thing I think is wrong with most of the above posts is saying that Obama "wants" to go to war. Why would anyone want that? I think he feels it's the duty of the Free World, of which he is the de facto leader, to respond to an atrocity, a crime against humanity. Crimes that go without consequences become standard behavior.

No one wants a boots on the ground intervention in the quagmire of a civil war funded by opposing world powers. It's pretty well proven that direct intervention just ups the body count. The trick Mr. Obama is trying to pull off is an appropriate response with limited repercussions.

 

Agreed. The idea that the US wants to get involved with Syria is silly - we've done everything possible to ignore that mess for the last two years. When Obama drew the red line, no one criticized him for it because it was considered such a minimal response - if anything, the GOP criticized him for not being more aggressive. This isn't a situation where our leadership is itching for war and just looking for a reason.

 

So if the rebels killed 40k people and the Syrian government troops killed 60k people (random numbers), will Obama's appropriate response be directed 40 % at the rebels and 60 % at the Syrian government? And who will suffer most from Obama's "response" - the normal population or the government/rebels?

 

But we wouldn't be getting involved based on war in general - it's based on chemical weapons use.

Depends what we shoot at. The beauty of cruise missiles as opposed to getting involve in the ground is that if we attack military targets/weapons silos/etc, you could confine it fairly well to the government.