[Official] Do you support military strikes against Syria?

LOL, it's pretty much rhetorical at this point. They've already told the Assad regime what targets they were going to hit, which is why we have an expanded target list now. Because Assad moved everything.

And you appear to have not thought through any of the likely consequences. You seem to think the only possible consequence is that we hit Assad, he learn his lesson, and then he behaves and everything is kosher.

THAT is silly.

If you think my ideas are silly why don;t you refute them? Argue them? You guys want this war but can't articulate exactly why beyond a vague "it must be punished". You can't spell out exactly what that punishment is or how it will be effected, and you can't envision anything going wrong with such a military operation. It is incumbent upon those who support this (YOU) to explain its merits, what our expectations should be, what our objectives are.

You get that? You are defending the administration's position on this. It is incumbent upon YOU to explain why it's so urgent that we go to war again. The administration is simply tossing around lame one-liners - that amazingly get lamer by the day - and all I see here is parroting of those one-liners without any serious consideration of the consequences of this action.

That is not good enough.

Iraq was a gamble with a huge potential payoff. We did what we could, and ultimately the Iraqi people failed us. We were wrong about the WMD and we were wrong about the character of the Iraqi people.

I find it simply amazing that those who biched and complained for 8 years about our previous adventure in the ME are so willing to blindly jump right into another one. It almost makes me think that your anguish over Iraq was really all feigned (I know for many of you it was, it was always political and always just a way to get at Bu****ler)...

I will admit when I am wrong. Why can't you?

 

Bush-hitler...

 

This has to be one of the weirdest developments in the history of foreign policy crisis.

Russia takes an off-the-cuff remark from Kerry to eliminate Syrian chemical weapons seriously. It raises two things.

Was Kerry throwing out a prayer for Russia to save us? Did he intentionally do that pretending it was "off-the-cuff".

And more bizarre is this. Why on earth would Russia move to give Obama an out?? Russia had the U.S. is a tough pickle - a skeptical congress that didn't look like it would give Obama the green light, and the international community not backing strikes either. I don't think Obama would be allowed to strike by congress. It makes no sense. Obama hung himself to dry by going to congress in what is an inexplicable move in and of itself. And then for Russia to give Obama a parachute?

What on earth is going on here?

 

I am going to keep posting these until someone gives half-decent answers for them:

) What is the compelling national security interest we have in Syria?

2) How exactly does use of CBW in an internal civil war pose a threat to the national security of the US?

3) What is military goal of the proposed strikes?

4) What is the political goal of the proposed strikes?

5) What is the exit strategy? What is the endstate that we desire?

6) What will our course of action be if Assad ignores our strikes and launches another CBW strike?

7) In any military campaign casualties are likely (Assad could launch land-based SSMs at our ships, planes/pilots could be shot down, they have a couple of subs that could cause problems, etc) How many casualties are we willing to take? And what will our response be to taking casualties?

8) What will our response be if Iran, Hizbollah, and/or Iraqi militants (or other jihadists) attack US assets in response to our strikes?

9) Given Murphy's Law in war, are we prepared to be drawn into a deeper engagement in Syria itself, possibly with ground forces?

10) Given Murphy's Law in war, what will our course of action be if the conflict spreads beyond Syria's borders because of our actions?

 

The President has executive authority. He could go on with or without congressional approval.

 

Putin is playing Obama (and Kerry). They are amateurs by comparison. Russia gets to get the credit as a responsible peacemaker heading off a reckless American President who was hell-bent on unilateral military action.

Russia gets to play peacemaker and enhance their image in the eyes of many, appearing to be the responsible actor in all of this.

And of course they get to preserve one of their best client states in the ME. They know that if we go in then there is a significant risk that the Assad regime falls (ask Khadaffi how that works). The Russians want that port in Tartus and they want a friendly state who is going to continue to buy their weapons.

Putin knows exactly what he's doing.

 

Exactly. Russia has significant economic/military interests in Syria. Not only do the Russians trade frequently with Syria, but their ONLY military port in the Mediterranean is located in Syria. If Assad falls, the Russians could lose a lot of assets.

They desperately do not want any type of US attack.

 

Tree man's movie is more like the 1976 Sally Field tour de force "Sybil"

 

So putin tries.to get syria to avoid a strike AFTER meeting obama

 

Would Putin even put that on the table if not for US risk of attack. No. If getting rid of CW is in the best interest for us (we were concern it get into the hand of terrorist) then heck we might not have to spent a single million and accomplished our goals. Good outcome.

 

The public never knows what is going on in back channels. The staunch idealism is the presented image while the pragmatic career diplomats look for doable deals.


Next up, a scapegoat general, perhaps mysteriously killed. In a couple of years an Assad constitutional monarchy.

 

I would agree that it would be a good outcome - provided that there were mechanisms to ensure compliance with any agreement. I'm not real big on just taking the Russians' word for it...

I don't think this is remotely how POTUS planned for it to come out - provided it does pan out, which is by no means a sure bet at this point. We are still bumbling towards a war. POTUS doesn't get credit for it if Putin has to bail him out. We shouldn't be in this situation in the first place.

 

Yes, he could. But to do so in the face of congressional rejection of an AUMF would be unprecedented in US politics. No POTUS has ever been denied a AUMF and then gone ahead with military force before. It would be a blatant defiance of the will of the American people, as expressed by their representatives in the US Congress.

Hell, even Reid today postponed the test vote in the Senate on this matter; that is a signal that they may not even have the votes for it in the Senate. At this point it looks like they won't get cloture; they might not even have 51 votes by the time the vote is scheduled. They are losing votes daily as senators assess the situation. They definitely don't have the votes for it in the House.

If POTUS ignored a denial of AUMF by Congress and went ahead with an attack anyway it would have severe consequences. It would probably constitute fairly solid grounds for impeachment. And not the BS impeachment that Clinton went through, this would be real. We have separation of powers for a good reason. We have a restrained executive for a reason. The Founders were wise to put the ultimate power to make war into the hands of the direct representatives of the American people. We have the final say.

The Founders did not intend to set up a system whereby a President could act as king and send the people of this nation to die in foreign wars without their consent. That consent is given by Congress. In the absence of a declaration of war, Congress may authorize the use of military force - an AUMF. Bush got AUMFs for both Iraq and Afghanistan, yet many here frequently call one or both of those wars "illegal". How "legal" will a war be if an AUMF is denied by the US Congress - and by extension the American people - and yet a POTTUS pursues it anyway?

I hope Putin bails us out of this mess. (Oh my GOD, did I actually just say that?!? How low we have fallen in this episode...) I hope that we are spared the spectacle of an American POTUS being humiliated by a denial of an AUMF. As much as I disagree with POTUS on policy grounds I do not want to see his office or by extension this nation humiliated by such an episode. I hope even more fervently that if denied the AUMF, that the POTUS would respect the will of the American people and NOT engage in the adventure. Because as much as it might hurt to have such a humiliation in the short term, it would be even worse to set a precedent whereby the will of the American people in as grave a matter as war is thrown down the toilet.

 

What is silly is that you would post something so ridiculous. Who thinks "Assad will learn his lesson, will behave, and everything will be kosher." Who thinks that? I certainly don't. I strongly believe that the use of WMD's should be punished and discouraged, because they're use is against international law, and not reacting to their use would essentially tell the world that to hell with the Geneva Protocol and international law, if you have them, use them. That would be madness. Madness akin to Reagan helping Saddam use WMD's against the Iranians.

You are so sure of your opinions. You were certain about Iraq. How did that work out? Maybe you should consider developing a mind open to the ideas of others. Just a thought.

Incredible. Iraq wasn't a failure because the damned war should never have been fought in the first place. It wasn't a failure because Bush was a fool who invaded and occupied a country that wasn't a clear and present danger to the United States, it was a failure because "we were wrong about the character of the Iraqi people." Oh, great. Start a war and kill countless Iraqi's, drain and weaken our military, weaken both our perceived power and our actual power, and our standing in the world, encouraging our enemies, and that's all you can say. "We were wrong about WMD's and we were wrong about the character of the Iraqi people."

You haven't admitted you were wrong. You are still making excuses for Bush's mad adventure, attempting to place blame everywhere else, but where it belongs. Squarely on the Bush Administration's decision to go to war when we didn't have to, a war that cost us incredible amounts of blood and treasure, a war the negative consequences of which are still being measured. You are right about one thing. It was a huge gamble, and not only Bush and his supporters "lost" that gamble... the United States of America lost as well. Perhaps Bush and those who think his actions worth doing back then should stick to Vegas. The losing is a hell of a lot less painful.

And no mention of Reagan, who should have been impeached for his actions in the late '80's helping Saddam. No one seems to want to think about that, do they. It's the pity of the world that no one knew what he was doing. Some suspected it, probably, but the secret was kept, at least until now. Heaven forbid that Obama should have a very different viewpoint on the use of WMD's.

Oh, it must be grand being you and being so sure of your opinions.

 

Well then exactly what do you hope to accomplish by launching an admittedly ineffectual military operation? If you don't think that Assad will "eat his porridge and STFU" - i.e., not launch future CBW attacks - then exactly what is the point?

OK. And military force is the *only* way to inflict this punishment?

Again, what use is a military strike that you admit beforehand will not influence future behavior?

This is absurd, Deckard. I understand the desire to respond to this, I get the desire to deter future use of CBW. I get it. But what is being proposed holds virtually ZERO promise of actually accomplishing those goals, and it runs a VERY high risk of opening a Pandora's box that will ensnare us in a very, very nasty civil war that will make Iraq look like a cakewalk.

We debated going into Iraq for a year. And suddenly, there's no time for debate, we have to attack Syria NOW? Slow down. You're not an idiot. Think about this.

I am not going to debate Iraq again here. It's been done to death and it will only hopelessly derail this thread. I will just say that in the context of the current debate, hindsight is 20/20, and few here understand what actually happened in Iraq and why it happened the way it did. We made alot of mistakes, and it took us several years to find the right formula. In the end we fixed the situation as well as it could be fixed, and the Iraqi people took up the mantle. And they failed. Utterly.

It was a gamble. I've explained this several times in other threads, that the hope was that we could spread democracy and economic freedom throughout the ME, and by doing so we could combat the spread of radical Islam that led to the 9/11 attacks. We did not understand the tribal nature of the region fully until we got there. It has no analogy in Western culture. We thought that Iraq was relatively secular, but failed to understand that the "relatively" part meant that they were still very Islamic in preference and in thinking. We miscalculated in that respect. Once we got there we had to adjust to the situation. But the goals were solid, as was the intended outcome.

And we should learn from it. Solid goals and good intentions alone do not justify engagement in war. Can we agree on that? If we can, then I must ask you again why you think this current war is necessary. And if we can't... Then we are speaking a different language.

Interesting how libs always want to fight old battles, while always ignoring the current one in debate...

Reagan gave them intelligence. He understood that at the time the Iranians were a much greater threat to US interests than Saddam was. He was content to let them fight each other while we sat back and watched.

Kojirou often talks about balance and the virtues of letting our enemies kill each other. I agree with him in that regard. It's what Reagan did during the Iran-Iraq war.

It's been awhile since I've read Sun-Tzu. Wasn't there something in there about not interfering when your enemies are killing each other? Maybe I'm thinking of something else.

I am not sure about anything. That's the nature of existence. But it is definitely my opinion that we have little to gain and much to potentially lose by engaging in a unilateral military strike in a civil war, and one that brings great risk of entangling us in a wider war in the most contentious region on the planet.

Haven't you figured out by now that othing in the ME is ever easy? That nothing that you plan there will ever go as planned?

Oh... And you forgot to show me those enforcement mechanisms for the Geneva Protocols and the CWC. I'm still waiting on that.

 

Just for a little perspective here...

The war in Iraq lasted for about 8 years until things really calmed down. (they are heating up again, but that is a result of our absence and events in Syria). A bit over 100k people died during that war.

The Syrian war has been going on for a little over 2 years. Roughly 100k people have died in that war.

The Iraq war was a simmering war. The Syrian war is going on at a very hot boil.. It's a hot war. Assad's forces are not what we are used to fighting, they will not be pushovers. Remember, they fought with us in 1991, and we got a look at them. They are not like other Arab armies.

Know your enemy. Understand what you're walking into. To go into this thinking you can get away with a pinprick Tomahawk strike is the height of folly. All I ask is that you actually think about it.

 

The Iraqi people failed us in our illegal pre-emptive war based on false pretenses and decade long occupation. If only the Iraqis had more character it would have been a success.

It's like we have our own Dick Cheney mini me posting here.

 

CUSHING!!

 

... my mistake.

 

http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/...arried-out-by-fsa-rebels-not-bashar-al-assad/

Gas attacks not by Assad?