BobD
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So he's offering no evidence of no evidence?
Situation in Syria
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So he's offering no evidence of no evidence?
jmurphy75
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The point is we shouldn't even be doing that. This is a NATO thing not a US thing plain and simple. I'm acting like an American I wish our President would, right now he's acting like a kid in a sandbox that drew a line and now it might have been crossed so he doesn't want to look like a pussy and has to do something. This is all just my opinion but it seems to be shared by most military friends of mine.....WE ARE NOT GOING TO WAR PEOPLE!
We are going to stick a few well targeted missiles up someone's ***. There is a huge difference.
Stop soiling yourselves and act like Americans
RDU Irish
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Grayson may be the biggest idiot in Congress, which is saying a lot given the plethora of idiots in there on both sides of the aisle. Maybe if he wasn't such a melodramatic twit people would take him more seriously. It would really be unfortunate if this were a case of the boy who cried wolf, however, I think it more likely he is just a raving lunatic.
dublinirish
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You would think the rebels would attack a US target somewhere in the world and blame on the Assad regime to draw the US directly into the conflict. I am very surprized this has not happened yet.
^
Except it's not a NATO thing. It's a U.N. thing or at least an Arab thing. But the Saudis, Jordanians, Kuwaitis, etc don't want to muss their thawbs so they'll "hire" the American mercenaries to do the dirty work for them while they condemn their standins as imperialists aggressors.
This is about a President saving face. He went on a worldwide apologizing tour and now wants to play tough kid on the block. Other presidents were wrong when they stuck their noses into sovereign's nations business. But HIS intervention would be noble. B.S!
If he wants to end needless killing INVADE CHICAGO!
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Kerry would be quick to point out, "That was the bad faction of the rebels. The good rebels had nothing to do with it. So we need to arm the good rebels (although we don't know which is which) so they can eliminate the bad ones after they get rid of the baby gasser."
palinurus
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Just skimming the posts and it's all interesting.
While it's tempting to compare and contrast the behavior of the last administration to this one, and to raise charges and countercharges about hypocrisy and misleading statements, that all seems irrelevant to this, except inasmuch the politicians are jockeying for public support. There is a lot to look at here, at some point, from who said and did what then, to who's saying what now, who's being consistent, and who was and is being honest or not, etc. But setting that all aside, these, to me, are the real questions:
1. do we know what happened? how sure are we of what happened and who did it?
2. IF we can answer the questions in #1, what is commensurate and useful response -- meaning, what can we do to the people who did it? will it make them stop? how sure are we of success?
3. How do we define "success" in the context of who we are helping, even assuming one of the "people" we are helping is other civilians who won't get gassed in the future? Assuming we can bomb whoever did this and they stop gassing civilians, does it matter what the effect of that is on who ultimately wins the conflict? Does it matter if Al Qaida wins as a result of the bombing? Does Al Qaida winning actually push us closer to war because of its effect on Israel and mideast peace?
4. I would also raise the point of whether acting is in the US interest; I think this is a threshold question. I do think, apart from this case, that killing terrorists and stopping terrorist actions, even against others, is a US interest, but #1, #2, #3 above still need to be answered.
While it's tempting to compare and contrast the behavior of the last administration to this one, and to raise charges and countercharges about hypocrisy and misleading statements, that all seems irrelevant to this, except inasmuch the politicians are jockeying for public support. There is a lot to look at here, at some point, from who said and did what then, to who's saying what now, who's being consistent, and who was and is being honest or not, etc. But setting that all aside, these, to me, are the real questions:
1. do we know what happened? how sure are we of what happened and who did it?
2. IF we can answer the questions in #1, what is commensurate and useful response -- meaning, what can we do to the people who did it? will it make them stop? how sure are we of success?
3. How do we define "success" in the context of who we are helping, even assuming one of the "people" we are helping is other civilians who won't get gassed in the future? Assuming we can bomb whoever did this and they stop gassing civilians, does it matter what the effect of that is on who ultimately wins the conflict? Does it matter if Al Qaida wins as a result of the bombing? Does Al Qaida winning actually push us closer to war because of its effect on Israel and mideast peace?
4. I would also raise the point of whether acting is in the US interest; I think this is a threshold question. I do think, apart from this case, that killing terrorists and stopping terrorist actions, even against others, is a US interest, but #1, #2, #3 above still need to be answered.
dublinirish
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He's also sending more warships to the Mediterranean.
Russia Boosts Mediterranean Force as U.S. Mulls Syria Strike - Bloomberg
sparkyND
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An op-ed piece on CNN website yesterday:
Opinion: Strike would make Syria peace less likely - CNN.com
"If the United States launches missiles into Syria, those cheering the loudest will be the Syrian rebels. The United States will be intervening in the Syrian civil war on behalf of the rebels. A significant amount of research, including my own, demonstrates that military interventions from outside states lengthen and make bloodier civil wars. Much of this evidence is the result of statistical modeling of all civil wars and any associated interventions. The data include roughly 1,000 interventions into 100 civil wars over the last 60 years, with research carried out by multiple research teams.
The results point to patterns in what happens when states intervene to try to help their preferred actor, and the results are strong and consistent that interventions rarely work to promote peace or reduce violence. For example, my own research has shown that the likelihood of a civil war lasting for four years without an intervention is 37%, but if there is an intervention the likelihood that it lasts for four years is 60%. The intervention accounts for the 50% increase in the length of the war.
Longer wars are generally bloodier. Examples might include the Nicaraguan war in the 1980s, and the Syrian war up to this point. The meager support for the rebels has allowed them to push harder against the government, and whether or not we support the government, the killing and the war's duration has only increased.
It's hard to predict exactly what will happen, of course, but once the United States bombs Syrian forces, it is possible that the rebels will take that moment to launch their own offensive, forcing the Syrian government to respond even more resolutely, greatly worsening the bloodshed.
Even if a U.S. missile strike reflects inadvertent help for the rebels, history does not point to a good outcome for U.S. policy.
The only pathway by which external interventions consistently make for shorter or less bloody wars is through diplomatic efforts to broker a peace agreement. The same modeling evidence suggests that the war in Angola, 1975-1991, could have been shortened by nearly 10 years with well-timed diplomatic interventions.
From this perspective, a missile strike will only move the situation further from peace. Sometimes the difficulty for warring parties to come to a negotiating table is tied up in information that is held private, the very thing that mediators can manage. So why not engage in serious diplomacy?
The United States has two stated policies, at least beyond the immediate question of punitive bombing in response to the chemical attacks. The first is to aid the Syrian opposition in its fight against the Assad regime; the second is to help broker a negotiated settlement.
The second goal makes sense; the first is fraught with difficulties. Two aspects of the negotiated route pose a problem for the United States. First, the official U.S. policy is that al-Assad must go. Both former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of State John Kerry have made these claims. Second, the rebels have steadfastly refused to negotiate. The only policy on the table is to kill more Syrians to show the Syrian leaders that killing Syrians is wrong. In this regard, U.S. policies are inconsistent with past behavior, empirical evidence and logic."
This ND prof pretty much sums up what I've been trying to say in my past post. Armed intervention in the form of air strikes has not had the intended impact in the past and is supported by statistical analysis. We will be no closer to peace or some sort of resolution; as a matter a fact, this will further prolong the civil war in that country and make everyday Syrian's lives even more or similarly miserable. Furthermore, if it is highly doubtful that we will gain what we initially intended then why begin it in the first place. As the saying goes, there are 99 problems that our country faces and Syria ain't one of them.
Opinion: Strike would make Syria peace less likely - CNN.com
"If the United States launches missiles into Syria, those cheering the loudest will be the Syrian rebels. The United States will be intervening in the Syrian civil war on behalf of the rebels. A significant amount of research, including my own, demonstrates that military interventions from outside states lengthen and make bloodier civil wars. Much of this evidence is the result of statistical modeling of all civil wars and any associated interventions. The data include roughly 1,000 interventions into 100 civil wars over the last 60 years, with research carried out by multiple research teams.
The results point to patterns in what happens when states intervene to try to help their preferred actor, and the results are strong and consistent that interventions rarely work to promote peace or reduce violence. For example, my own research has shown that the likelihood of a civil war lasting for four years without an intervention is 37%, but if there is an intervention the likelihood that it lasts for four years is 60%. The intervention accounts for the 50% increase in the length of the war.
Longer wars are generally bloodier. Examples might include the Nicaraguan war in the 1980s, and the Syrian war up to this point. The meager support for the rebels has allowed them to push harder against the government, and whether or not we support the government, the killing and the war's duration has only increased.
It's hard to predict exactly what will happen, of course, but once the United States bombs Syrian forces, it is possible that the rebels will take that moment to launch their own offensive, forcing the Syrian government to respond even more resolutely, greatly worsening the bloodshed.
Even if a U.S. missile strike reflects inadvertent help for the rebels, history does not point to a good outcome for U.S. policy.
The only pathway by which external interventions consistently make for shorter or less bloody wars is through diplomatic efforts to broker a peace agreement. The same modeling evidence suggests that the war in Angola, 1975-1991, could have been shortened by nearly 10 years with well-timed diplomatic interventions.
From this perspective, a missile strike will only move the situation further from peace. Sometimes the difficulty for warring parties to come to a negotiating table is tied up in information that is held private, the very thing that mediators can manage. So why not engage in serious diplomacy?
The United States has two stated policies, at least beyond the immediate question of punitive bombing in response to the chemical attacks. The first is to aid the Syrian opposition in its fight against the Assad regime; the second is to help broker a negotiated settlement.
The second goal makes sense; the first is fraught with difficulties. Two aspects of the negotiated route pose a problem for the United States. First, the official U.S. policy is that al-Assad must go. Both former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of State John Kerry have made these claims. Second, the rebels have steadfastly refused to negotiate. The only policy on the table is to kill more Syrians to show the Syrian leaders that killing Syrians is wrong. In this regard, U.S. policies are inconsistent with past behavior, empirical evidence and logic."
This ND prof pretty much sums up what I've been trying to say in my past post. Armed intervention in the form of air strikes has not had the intended impact in the past and is supported by statistical analysis. We will be no closer to peace or some sort of resolution; as a matter a fact, this will further prolong the civil war in that country and make everyday Syrian's lives even more or similarly miserable. Furthermore, if it is highly doubtful that we will gain what we initially intended then why begin it in the first place. As the saying goes, there are 99 problems that our country faces and Syria ain't one of them.
palinurus
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Truth of the statement, as a general matter, aside, this is a flashy sentence, but it's pure silliness and a bit of intellectually dishonest showboating. Killing terrorists is not the same as killing civilians. Not that he, and you, may not be right as to his overall point; I'm really not sure at this point.
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NoJusticeNoPeace
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NDFan4Life
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I could go along with that. I doubt it would help Syria any, but it sure would help America.
ickythump1225
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The lunacy of all this is maddening. By offering assistance to the rebels we could be helping the group that actually gassed "innocent Muslim children." And yes as a Christian I will stand by fellow Christians against barbaric Muslim terrorists. I refuse to support arming radical Islamists against a guy who we can't even prove used chemical weapons so that extremists can wipe out the few remaining Christians in the region.
ickythump1225
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Stop swallowing government propaganda wholesale and act like an American. We're just going to light the powder keg and walk away? For people who act like they care so much about the poor "innocent Muslim children" (oh noez, not the children!) advocating bringing anarchy and instability to a nation and then walking away and letting f**king al-Qaeda pick up the pieces is a horrendously stupid idea. Do the globalist warhawks really think the "innocent Muslim children" will be better off under the tyrannical rule of radical Islamic terrorists?WE ARE NOT GOING TO WAR PEOPLE!
We are going to stick a few well targeted missiles up someone's ***. There is a huge difference.
Stop soiling yourselves and act like Americans
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This.
As a pretty darn moderate person with friends all across the spectrum, it's also really interesting watching my very Left friends and their reaction to this. Many of them voted for Obama specifically because they didn't want any more extraneous military conflicts in the Middle East that could be avoided. They HATED the Iraq conflict that Bush's administration championed. I heard about it every single day. Now Obama and anti-war Kerry are warmongering? It's just bizarre. They don't have any idea how to react... because it's "their guy" champion something they don't believe support.
Very weird scenario....
BobD
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Join the military then come back and we'll talk.
IMHO Chemical weapons are an excuse to get (more) involved in Syria. For those that don't remember (or don't want to remember) I'd like to point to their recent use by the US government :
- Washington Attacked Iraqi Civilians with White Phosphorus in 2004
White phosphorus is a horrific incendiary chemical weapon that melts human flesh right down to the bone.
In 2004, journalists embedded with the U.S. military in Iraq began reporting the use of white phosphorus in Fallujah against Iraqi insurgents. First the military lied and said that it was only using white phosphorus to create smokescreens or illuminate targets. Then it admitted to using the volatile chemical as an incendiary weapon.
U.S. official admits phosphorus used as weapon in Iraq - World - CBC News
- Police Fired Tear Gas at Occupy Protesters in 2011
The savage violence of the police against Occupy protesters in 2011 was well documented, andincluded the use of tear gas and other chemical irritants. Tear gas is prohibited for use against enemy soldiers in battle by the Chemical Weapons Convention.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/20...tear-gas-at-protesters-in-oakland-calif/?_r=0
- The U.S. Military Littered Iraq with Toxic Depleted Uranium in 2003
In Iraq, the U.S. military has littered the environment with thousands of tons of munitions made from depleted uranium, a toxic and radioactive nuclear waste product. As a result, more than half of babies born in Fallujah from 2007 – 2010 were born with birth defects. Some of these defects have never been seen before outside of textbooks with photos of babies born near nuclear tests in the Pacific.
Depleted Uranium – Far Worse Than 9/11 | Global Research
Iraq records huge rise in birth defects - Health News - Health & Families - The Independent
- Washington Attacked Iraqi Civilians with White Phosphorus in 2004
White phosphorus is a horrific incendiary chemical weapon that melts human flesh right down to the bone.
In 2004, journalists embedded with the U.S. military in Iraq began reporting the use of white phosphorus in Fallujah against Iraqi insurgents. First the military lied and said that it was only using white phosphorus to create smokescreens or illuminate targets. Then it admitted to using the volatile chemical as an incendiary weapon.
U.S. official admits phosphorus used as weapon in Iraq - World - CBC News
- Police Fired Tear Gas at Occupy Protesters in 2011
The savage violence of the police against Occupy protesters in 2011 was well documented, andincluded the use of tear gas and other chemical irritants. Tear gas is prohibited for use against enemy soldiers in battle by the Chemical Weapons Convention.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/20...tear-gas-at-protesters-in-oakland-calif/?_r=0
- The U.S. Military Littered Iraq with Toxic Depleted Uranium in 2003
In Iraq, the U.S. military has littered the environment with thousands of tons of munitions made from depleted uranium, a toxic and radioactive nuclear waste product. As a result, more than half of babies born in Fallujah from 2007 – 2010 were born with birth defects. Some of these defects have never been seen before outside of textbooks with photos of babies born near nuclear tests in the Pacific.
Depleted Uranium – Far Worse Than 9/11 | Global Research
Iraq records huge rise in birth defects - Health News - Health & Families - The Independent
And when John Kerry starts talking about the children I can't help be reminded of another Secretary of State (Madeleine Albright) comment about the death of over 500,000 iraqi children.
END WAR: Madeleine Albright Says Deaths Of 500,000 Iraqi Children Is Worth It; UN Sanction Genocide - YouTube
END WAR: Madeleine Albright Says Deaths Of 500,000 Iraqi Children Is Worth It; UN Sanction Genocide - YouTube
WE ARE NOT GOING TO WAR PEOPLE!
We are going to stick a few well targeted missiles up someone's ***. There is a huge difference.
Stop soiling yourselves and act like Americans
A few well targeted missiles = Act of war!
What exactly do you mean by "acting like an american" ???
palinurus
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In your two war examples, civilians were not the target of the chemical materials used. That matters; civilians are harmed in war, no one doubts that. The moral issue is whether that was either the intention or indiscriminate result. Tear gas for crowd control is a far cry from the chemical weapons alleged to have been used in this case. In any event, your post seems to argue FOR action by the US, since it seems you think chemical weapons are bad in any context.
I'm sure the U.S. is, and has always been, an imperfect country; I totally reject the notion that we are the moral equivalent, or worse, of the worst countries, now or ever in the past. I believe greatly to the contrary.
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Sorry... I didn't get my point across well.
Chemical weapons = horrible
Obama or US gov doesn't really care about the chemical weapons and are using them as a made up reason to increase their involvement in Syria. They didn't call Russia... They didn't call out Israel... And they themselves used chemical weapons in the recent past and often in their history. I do agree with you about tear gas but it is still prohibited by the convention. I would however argue that the use of chemical weapons is prohibited... There are no distinctions between use against civilians or military.
Finally... I agree 100% that America is a great country and so are it's citizen!
ickythump1225
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Nice try, I served pal. USMC. But that was sweet cop out attempt.
BobD
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ickythump1225
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You ever going to get back to debating the actual topic or just continue to question the manhood, patriotism, and "Americaness" of those who don't think every military action launched by the U.S. is just? I love my country, I love it too much to see it continue to fight wars on the behalf of Israel and globalist bankster pigs. We need wholesale change in this nation. All our supposed "leaders" on both sides are idiots and not a damn one of them will ever change anything.Dang, we're worse off than I thought
BobD
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Sorry this isn't something I debate. We have a way of life in the United States that many in the world can't even imagine. If someone needs help, I'm gonna want to help them. I can't sit around and think about ways to talk myself out of helping them. He used chemical weapons on innocent people. Done.
ickythump1225
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So we support a group of people who used chemical weapons as well and are now persecuting Christians and beheading priests?
The cherry on top is we can't even probe it was Assad who used the chemicals and not the terrorists...err I'm sorry "freedom fighters". This whole situation is pathetic.