I don't recall people being okay with Iraq, even airstrikes only (the W invasions, not the HW invasion we all watched on CNN). Additionally, do you not agree that we should not be arming/assisting Al Qaeda? I have a major issue with this...I realize there are other rebel factions but their (AQ) involvement cannot be denied. Let's say we do go through with airstrikes only, topple the Assad regime, and now we have factions of AQ who potentially have access to all kinds of advanced weaponry. I am amazed that the media just kind of glosses over this. And I am a bit skeptical, even of declassified information, as we were definitely hoodwinked before on Iraq. Again, I am not trying to troll democrats in any way and am neutral on my feelings about the Obama admin (I was neutral on Bush as well...like and dislike a lot of what both have done and would be criticizing Romney for the same things had he been elected), but I cannot believe we are really considering helping a terrorist organization who has attacked and killed our innocent citizens in the name of "helping the Syrian people".
People have always been OK with airstrikes, pretty much anywhere. Few people really complained about our involvement in Libya. We enforced a no-fly zone and shot things down off and on in Iraq for a decade prior to invading - no one complained about that. Not many people have problems with regularly shooting cruise missiles and drone strikes into Pakistan. People aren't concerned with spending money - they are concerned with putting lives in harm's way. That's how it's always been. This is certainly a problem, and goes to my point about there being no good guys, but one really really bad guy. If you believe in ugly real-politic, then the US' best interest is to have Assad and AQ keep killing each other, in which case the US goal would be to keep the balance even. If Assad is getting stronger, weaken him so he can't "win", but don't help AQ enough to win either. If you don't believe in that view of the world, then a case can be made on a humanitarian level. You blow up a bunch of Assad's infrastructure simply to make clear to Assad that he can't mass murder civilians, and then step back again and let the war continue, hopefully without chemical weapons. As treeman suggested, it's unlikely that a few days of missile strikes is enough to topple Assad.
GWB spent over a year building a bipartisan international coalition for military action against Iraq. This is more comparable to Clinton lobbing a few missiles after the attack on our embassies in Africa.
Probably because it took a year to serve the BS prepared just so. It's not like they're legitimately asking anyone's permission, even for wars these days, much less airstrikes.
Fair enough - my original comment was in reference to answering why people weren't up in arms about it. Whether they are OK with or apathetic - either way explains why people don't get up in arms about airstrikes.
The Israelis would be quite happy about such a development. No one else would really care that much. Assad's air force has pretty much sat on the sidelines for this conflict.
You mean incorrect intelligence. Why has this difference always been so difficult for libs to understand? (of course I know the answer to that, and it has nothing to do with actual truth...) But this thread is about Syria. Stop trying to change the subject.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...Russia-secret-oil-deal-if-it-drops-Syria.html I think this is going to go down as a mean to get at Iran. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/27/us-syria-oil-factbox-idUSBRE97Q0JW20130827
russia currently supplies a huge chunk of europe's natural gas needs via gazprom. qatar wants to supply that european market with their own gas, but needs to route it thru syria.
Syria lets the Russian Navy station at its port, and Russia's foreign policy since the rise of the Romanovs can be summed up with "Get our hands on a warm-water port at all costs."
Global manufactured evidence? The intelligence agency of every single major world government believed he had WMD. Did we "manufacture" their intelligence, too? It was all just wrong. Intelligence gathering is an art, not a science, and it is often incomplete or inaccurate. You just have to run with what you've got.
