[Official] Do you support military strikes against Syria?

All very sensible questions.

I can't believe I find myself agreeing with *both* treeman and glynch in one thread... :grin: ... but history is kind of on glynch's side, wrt US involvement escalating, and in terms of the power and momentum of the military-industrial complex.

This issue will stay sticky and thorny for a while yet, and for those not wanting US involvement, it will not hurt to keep calling their reps.

 

Wow I just read you post. I guess we agree a lot on this issue.

 

So you are holding Obama responsible for the actions of previous Admins and for US history when he wasn't in office. Got it.

No I am looking at what Obama as actually done in the last two years. His Syria policy has been haphazard and anything but focused on enforcing US hegemony and the military industrial complex. It looks more like he is looking for excuses to stall actually taking action.

I've hazarded plenty of predictions and clearly state when I am speculating and why. What I don't do is just base things on ideology.

 

Keep in mind Glynch and Treeman appear to approaching this from very different angles and both heavily colored by ideology. Glynch is looking at history which is fine but you have to consider that a lot of those things of US involvement escalating wasn't done by Obama. If anything Obama has tried to get us out of escalation. Even his heavily criticized drone policy is clearly an attempt to avoid using actual US forces and to fight war on the cheap. That obviously has it's own problems.

Too many people are reading this through the lens of Iraq when it should be obvious that the strikes Obama are calling for aren't going to be even in the same ballpark as Iraq. One of the problems with them are whether they will do anything at all.

True it will be sticky and there are plenty of reasons not to do this. What I am arguing for is that people look at the actual facts of what Obama has been doing, what he is proposing, and what is actually going on in Syria. So much of this debate is being driven by speculation and ideology.

 

Obama has a plethora of geopolitical reasons to consider action against Syria. Some are more...persuasive...than others (and glynch's list is hardly accurate or complete), but to simply act like this evidence does not exist is surprisingly naive of you.

 

Well, we all have to speculate about ground facts in Syria. It's just a complete mess.

You are speculating that Obama's intentions with a military strike (supposedly limited) could overcome evolving chaos there. I would argue it is NOT illogical, ideological, or even very speculative to suggest that lobbing missiles or dropping bombs into a chaotic environment may well increase pressure for further involvement or at the very least exacerbate the unresolved issues. Cheers!

 

Now Obama is trapped. Russia is using this as a way to avoid strikes but not really do anything - it's a stalling tactic. Unlikely they are serious about disarming Syria of chemical weapons.

Obama can't put any pressure on Syria because the U.S. Congress has cut his balls off. So he's an impotent in this situation to push for serious concessions.

 

Found this map useful

 

Here glynch is making the common error of a double post.

 

Yes, but this is not due to my propensity to be a leftie ideologue but old age and trying to post in between trying to work.

 

A quick question from a simpleton, not to change the subject too much. And definitely not to turn this into a Dem. vs Rep thing. But, Does Obama get any credit for actually going to Congress and other countries to explain his idea before taking dangerous action? Unlike, others before, namely Bush, who just go ahead and carry out the plan with or without the approval of others.

Or am I interpreting/understanding this wrong?

 

He will be branded by FAUX, and hence, by 47% of the people either way; a dictator or dickless. That's just the nature of Rovian adversarial politics, no statesmanship, no compromise, no principles.

 

Huh? Bush had both UN and Congressional approval for BOTH wars. He didn't go all cowboy on the Mid East.

After 9/11 much of the world supported whatever we wanted to do to bring those responsible. Even Putin. Putin was called on 9/11 when we put our forces on alert all across the globe. Rice said something to the effect of "Mr. Putin, we want to let you know we have put our forces on alert." Putin replied something like, "We know, we have cancelled our military exercises, is there anything we can do to help?"

Obama only went to Congress because Americans were freaking out. There wasn't a 20 something approval rating for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when we went in. There was almost unilateral support to bring those who were responsible for 9/11 to justice. The fact that we were wrong about Iraq is irrelevant. Bush still had approval, by the UN, Congress, and even the judiciary.

 

Woops

 

One thing that should always be kept in mind wrt to the International Conventions concerning chemical weapons is that Israel is in violation also because it produces, stockpiles them etc. So does the US but as with nukes we exempt unilaterally ourselves and friends

I just saw a former State Dept official stating that Syria giving up its Chem weapons is a major victory for Israel as they were Syria's major defense against Israel
Interesting

Of course Israel is violating international law big time by occupying Syrian territory in the Golan Heights. I know doesn't count because we exempt them

Still maintain it is extremely simplistic to accept the US media and the Obama narrative that this is the good old noble US just doing its humanitarian duty for suffering Syrian children.

Another thing the media or moderates could do would to not only keep viewing the bodies of recent Syrian kids killed by almost surely chemical gases S urged by Obama in his Tuesday speech, but to keep viewing the deformed kids and fetuses still being produced as the result of chemical weapons employed by the US in Fallujah (depleted uranium) or in Vietnam. (agent orange)

The last paragraph is provided courtesy of Chomsky