[Official] Do you support military strikes against Syria?

very non-biased source. I will call your article and raise you this...
http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/09...s-with-al-qaida-ties-sought-chemical-weapons/

 

And you should go into stand-up comedy. Your insults are almost too subtle to notice.

Blake - your article is no surprise. Wouldn't surprise me if it was true.

 

I'm saving that gif.

 

Don't look now, it's really time to invade!

US-Russia deal lets Bashar Assad keep biological weapons

http://washingtonexaminer.com/u.s-russia-deal-lets-bashar-assad-keep-biological-weapons/article/2535832

Everything is under control. All is going as planned. Right?

 

Any deal gets Russia engaged and responsible for it's proxy. The Syrian situation has always been Russia's to deal with, not the US's. We just had to get them to put their hands on the tarbaby.

 

Wait - your solution (do nothing) would have had Assad keep both Chem and Bio weapons and had no resolutions or inspectors or oversight of any kind. Here, he loses his Chem weapons, with no shots fired and no lives risked. Certainly, the US doesn't get everything they wanted - but it's bizarre how you try your hardest to paint these outcomes as total failures, despite them being far superior to the results from your proposed solutions in every way.

 

If you think that Assad is actually going to lose his chemical weapons because of this I have a bridge to sell you. He is going to take a play out of Saddam's book and delay, play games, and stay in power. He is buying time so that he can deal with the civil war. Once he has defeated the rebels no one is going to screw with him. He knows that he can call any bluff, because to actually truly take his weapons away would require a ground invasion - which we are most certainly not going to do.

This is a smokescreen, Major. Do you really not get that?

 

Fine - let's say your worst-case scenario plays out. Then the end result is that Russia is completely discredited on the world stage. Which is then STILL more of a positive than your solution where Assad gets to keep all his weapons and Russia is not discredited.

Keep trying to explain why its bad that the worst case scenarios of this solution are the same as the best case scenarios of your own.

 

http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama...llow-aid-to-syrian-opposition/article/2535885

 

What are you talking about? This process is going to take years. No one will blame the Russians if those weapons never materialize. Bet your a$$ that we will get the blame if anyone does.

Er, your solution a week ago was to bomb them and risk entanglement in another middle eastern war.

At this point I actually think this is the best case scenario. It allows us to walk back from the war that our leadership almost foolishly got us into. It would have been nice had he never done it in the first place, but his ego demanded it. It would have been nice if we'd been able to extricate ourselves from this situation without egg on our face, but what's done is done and the egg is already there.

All I am saying is that if you actually believe that this process is going to result in Assad giving up his chemical weapons, then you are likely in for a big disappointment. It's a smokescreen. And it's working.

 

What happened to Saddam's WMD?

 

According to the Duelfer Report most of the evidence indicates that he destroyed them himself and simply neglected to tell anyone - an immeasurably stupid course to take, but he had his reasons (he still wanted his neighbors to believe that he had them but wanted to be able to pass inspections and ultimately get sanctions lifted... if only the crazy, dumb bas+ard had called the UNSCOM to witness their destruction, how things might be different... but maybe not). Other reports indicate that some of them may have been moved. There were more than a few reports out during the period that they were moved to Syria...

Here's some fun reading:

America's Middle East Policy Collapses

http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/americas-middle-east-policy-collapses-9073

The article is co-authored by a liberal who desired intervention and a conservative who wanted us to stay out of it. And they both come to the same conclusion. No way to paint this one in rosy colors, no matter which way you approach it.

 

And, because I missed the opportunity for the right retort above: What happened to the US after Saddam's charade?

(Answer: we invaded and occupied a foreign country in an ultimately fruitless escapade that got lots of people killed... do we want to repeat that game?)

 

Hooked Russia in perfectly. I like...

 

Blame? you mean like nahya nahya? Who cares? Everyone in the world already knows Russia only works to benefit Russia and China only works to benefit China

The US was bombing in response to the use of chemical weapons, a nun slapping a hand with a ruler. We can do that with impunity other than terror responses. Mr. Obama clearly stated no boots on the ground. You seem incapable of understanding any of that.

Apology accepted

If Assad uses chemical weapons again, I think he would be swiftly struck. But with Russia involved, even a rogue action is unlikely. Other than that I think the US will support 'moderate' rebels (as you posted) and work for a Russian negotiated settlement between them and Assad keeping Islamic radicals on the outside. Remember Russia and the US are actually allies against Islamic terror.

 

Seems like Obama has played this situation about right.

- The Obama administration has wanted Russia to put some pressure on their ally, Syria for a long time now.

- Syria uses chemical weapons on it's own people

- Obama threatens military strikes on Syria

- The pressure causes Putin to cave in and finally put the pressure on Syria

- An agreement is reached. Obama got Russia to do it's part, and we didn't end up having to do any military strikes.

- This new agreement seems more effective than military strikes would have been.

 

Yeap. Even if it doesn't pan out, the potential rewards is definitely worth trying.

I can understand the argument that this is a waste of time for folks that wanted us to get involved military now (the rebels and others here that wanted a strike and simply don't believe this agreement will have a chance in hell or is just a delay tactic).

I do not understand the argument that this is a total waste of time for folks that did not want a military strike. It seems they rather do nothing than give this agreement a chance of succeeding, however small. They simply dismiss it outright. It's such a demotivating view. Or perhaps they just can't accept anything potentially positive from this Admin, so much so, they almost prefer it to fail over the interest of the U.S.

 

Anybody else find it sort of funny to see Israel and the AIPAC crowd getting all upset because the model of Syrian diplomacy to resolve this problem might interfere with THEIR plans to have US attack Iran?

One of the most telling things I saw on TV was many years ago when Netanyahu was between offices and on a TV talk show. He was discussing the scourge of Iraq, (from an Israeli perspective) a couple of years before 9/11 and the Bush II debacle. Now this was during a time between Iraq War I and II and nothing much was happening and Iraq was not in the news.

The interviewer said that Israel with our advanced weapons could have a huge devastating initial strike against Iraq, but Iraq was too big for Israel to actually invade and occupy. Bibi said: "yes, but not too big for the US".