US moves naval group closer to Syria

[billhilly]

It is a financial strain but look at the alternative: if the US would pull out, and as "nature abhors a vacuum", Russia and China would definitely fill in the gap, and impose their will on the high seas. Do we really want that? Countries that have an abysmal record on human rights, making decision for us, and most likely against us?!?? In the long run, we would not only face greater financial strain, but our way of life would be in dire strait.

And if we take out the ruling regime that won't create a vacuum and how is bombing Syria going to effect the naval balance of the world?  I can't believe you (or anyone really) can argue with a straight face that not bombing Syria will jeopardize our way of life.  False dichotomies and hyperbole are not very persuasive.

[Colanth]

If they want to commit mutual suicide, I say let them.  Then we have one less "crazy dictator" to worry about in the future.

And the massive civilian death toll?  Not our problem?

Why is it our problem?  Who appointed us protector of all people?  We can't even protect all Americans.  Once we get our own house in order we can worry about others.

[Colanth]

Our strength is our military, which of course is awesome, but it's not very good at enlightening tribal cultures.

And that's the main problem in the ME.  The culture is still tribal, bit we've imposed a nationalistic life on the area.  Do we have people who feel no ties to the country they live in, but very strong ties to their tribes.

Now force formerly-warring tribes to live with each other and you have the perfect formula for never-ending conflict.

And how do we solve the conflict?  We keep forcing them to live together.

When will we learn that gasoline makes a terrible fire retardant?

[josephpalazzo]

It is a financial strain but look at the alternative: if the US would pull out, and as "nature abhors a vacuum", Russia and China would definitely fill in the gap, and impose their will on the high seas. Do we really want that? Countries that have an abysmal record on human rights, making decision for us, and most likely against us?!?? In the long run, we would not only face greater financial strain, but our way of life would be in dire strait.

And if we take out the ruling regime that won't create a vacuum and how is bombing Syria going to effect the naval balance of the world?

The financial strain was in regard to the US as being a superpower. What's happening in Syria has other implications, namely, that other dictators will use this as a green light to use chemical weapons on their own people to eliminate the undesirables. Please try not to confuse the issues.  

I can't believe you (or anyone really) can argue with a straight face that not bombing Syria will jeopardize our way of life.  False dichotomies and hyperbole are not very persuasive.

I'm not responsible for your limited IQ.

[SilentFutility]

I dunno, one case where the dictator did carry out ethnic cleansing and most definitely did get bombed soon after comes readily to mind.  

Yeah, and countless others get away with it.
Humanitarian reasons are at best a secondary objective/concern. If they weren't, the US military would be using it's mind-bogglingly VAST capabilities to feed the starving in Africa and whatnot, but they aren't, because it wouldn't particularly serve their interests.

Evidently, it is.  Hence the present situation.

And if using WMDs on civilians isn't the sort of thing that merits intervention, what is?

Oh come on now, as if people haven't been indiscriminately targeting civillians with area-effect weapons since it became possible to do so.

And such things have become crimes against humanity in recent human history.  With a mixed bag of punishments from the international community, up to and including military intervention if the situation gets dire enough.

Actual LOL. People massacre each other all over the world all the time, and people completely flout international law as well. The west picks and chooses who to punish for it based on their interests in the name of justice.
People even pick and choose which conventions and treaties they want to sign. The US, for example, did not sign anything saying that they will be held accountable for scorched earth warfare tactics, thus they can carry them out with impunity.

International law is far from standardised, universal, effective, fair, and is only useful when bent by those nations controlling it who can use it to justify their actions.

People do incredibly cruel things in times of war and picking one very narrowly-defined type of cruel atrocity possible to commit during conflict and focusing on that and only that as something that is unacceptable and requires intervention is sensationalist and irrational

Is it irrational to call WMD-related atrocity unacceptable?   :-k

No, it is irrational to draw an arbitrary line in the sand whereby hundreds of thousands of people can be slaughtered, tortured, abducted, mutilated, raped and countless other atrocious and appalling things without warranting anyone lifting a finger but as soon as 100 die in one, very specific and particular way that just so happens to be the latest thing that people have decided makes you the bad guy, then everyone has their fingers on the trigger.

It shows western intervention for what it is; shallow self-service under the guise of justice and kindness. If they'd have done something from the start to try to stop countless innocents being massacred then that would have been a sincere effort to help someone. Dropping the odd bomb on a few facilities when the scale of human suffering is already beyond imagination and the shit hit the fan 2 years ago is going to achieve nothing in humanitarian terms.

and thinking that absolutely anything whatsoever will be achieved by kicking the hornet's nest and then running away again and doing nothing else is very naive.

Last time I checked, the hornets were already abuzz.

So kick it up even more by firing missiles and hope that when the dust settles everything will be better?

Where the US goes, the lapdog will surely follow.

UK, France, Germany, and Turkey.  And in short order, too.  Either we're amazingly persuasive or they are.[/quote]
The UK government is the lapdog that I was referring to...
Oh look, NATO...the treaty alliance for self-defence that is supposed to oblige countries in it to defend each other is such a shining example of brilliant international law and treaties at work.

Oh no wait NATO designates whatever country those who have a controlling stake in it ie. the US  want to invade, and then everyone is obliged to do the same. Making Afghanistan a NATO mission? What a sick joke, as if putting boots on the ground in Afghanistan was self-defence.



There's genuinely committing to doing something positive (and Syria is now such a mess that the time when this might have been possible has long since passed, and if it is possible, it will be a HUGE intervention), or there's not doing anything at all. The halfway house of shooting missiles at it and hoping it gets better is clearly not a humanitarian campaign, and designating it a NATO mission and citing various international laws etc. is just justification to shoot missiles.

[billhilly]

It is a financial strain but look at the alternative: if the US would pull out, and as "nature abhors a vacuum", Russia and China would definitely fill in the gap, and impose their will on the high seas. Do we really want that? Countries that have an abysmal record on human rights, making decision for us, and most likely against us?!?? In the long run, we would not only face greater financial strain, but our way of life would be in dire strait.

And if we take out the ruling regime that won't create a vacuum and how is bombing Syria going to effect the naval balance of the world?

The financial strain was in regard to the US as being a superpower. What's happening in Syria has other implications, namely, that other dictators will use this as a green light to use chemical weapons on their own people to eliminate the undesirables. Please try not to confuse the issues.  

I can't believe you (or anyone really) can argue with a straight face that not bombing Syria will jeopardize our way of life.  False dichotomies and hyperbole are not very persuasive.

I'm not responsible for your limited IQ.

Russia and China would definitely fill in the gap, and impose their will on the high seas.

Sun Tzu ain't got nothin on you does he?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

If both sides have been using chemical weapons, and we end up bombing the chemical plants, we have to take out Syria's defenses first.  The rebels may have used chemical weapons just to draw us into the war for the purpose of destroying Assad's defenses.  It's possible we are just being used.  Perhaps this has been brought up in this thread.  

Just thinking about what strategies may have been involved, and how much of what we might do is playing into someone else's hands.  I'm not trying to make a case one way or the other.  Just wondering.

I brought up the notion of lack of evidence or information about the chemical weapons attacks.

It seems likely from the anecdotal evidence that chemical weapons in some form were used, but that's about it. Not even the UN inspectors, the people tasked with trying to investigate the context of the attacks, know much more than the media reporting do. All we have is eye-witness accounts of the results of the attack(s), not who used them or even why.

There is clearly not enough evidence at this moment in time to commit to an offensive strike (against what is still unclear!), but we're going to do it anyway.

Also, regarding the idea that China and Russia would fill the vacuum left by Assad's fall, I doubt this to be true in 100% of scenarios that could take place as a result. Neither the Chinese nor the Russians are particularly fond of the extremist elements that undoubtedly hold sway in the opposing rebel factions (sadly), hence why they're desperate for Assad to remain in power. They've invested time and resources in his government and they don't want to see those resources in the hands of people who will try and use them against them in the future (eg. Chechnya).

[AllPurposeAtheist]

It could also be an excuse to wipe out whole groups that oppose.. .well..everyone but themselves. I'm no fan of Assad, but also no fan of the extremists pouring into Syria and lettïng them slug it out keeps hundreds of thousands in the crosshairs of both sides. This is damned if you do, damned if you don't. None of the above option isn't palletable and neither is starting a new war, but one group who loves it is the people pouring money into defense contracting and who always wins when massive amounts of bombing takes place.

[Shiranu]

Al-Asad serves more Western interests than the rebels it appears, so I am surprised we are seriously considering attacking him.

[josephpalazzo]

Humanitarian reasons are at best a secondary objective/concern. If they weren't, the US military would be using it's mind-bogglingly VAST capabilities to feed the starving in Africa and whatnot, but they aren't, because it wouldn't particularly serve their interests.

Actual LOL. People massacre each other all over the world all the time, and people completely flout international law as well. The west picks and chooses who to punish for it based on their interests in the name of justice.
People even pick and choose which conventions and treaties they want to sign. The US, for example, did not sign anything saying that they will be held accountable for scorched earth warfare tactics, thus they can carry them out with impunity

International law is far from standardised, universal, effective, fair, and is only useful when bent by those nations controlling it who can use it to justify their actions..

It shows western intervention for what it is; shallow self-service under the guise of justice and kindness. If they'd have done something from the start to try to stop countless innocents being massacred then that would have been a sincere effort to help someone. Dropping the odd bomb on a few facilities when the scale of human suffering is already beyond imagination and the shit hit the fan 2 years ago is going to achieve nothing in humanitarian terms.

The UK government is the lapdog that I was referring to...
Oh look, NATO...the treaty alliance for self-defence that is supposed to oblige countries in it to defend each other is such a shining example of brilliant international law and treaties at work.

Oh no wait NATO designates whatever country those who have a controlling stake in it ie. the US  want to invade, and then everyone is obliged to do the same. Making Afghanistan a NATO mission? What a sick joke, as if putting boots on the ground in Afghanistan was self-defence.

There's genuinely committing to doing something positive (and Syria is now such a mess that the time when this might have been possible has long since passed, and if it is possible, it will be a HUGE intervention), or there's not doing anything at all. The halfway house of shooting missiles at it and hoping it gets better is clearly not a humanitarian campaign, and designating it a NATO mission and citing various international laws etc. is just justification to shoot missiles.

I'm not sure what your position is.

(1) Do you mean that if there are fires, the US should extinguish all of them or none of them? Otherwise they are hypocrites.

(2) And if they only extinguish some of them, then they are cherrypicking only those for self-interest.

IOW, the US can only do bad???

Al-Asad serves more Western interests than the rebels it appears, so I am surprised we are seriously considering attacking him.

Assad has been buying weapons from Russia, but he takes his marching orders from Iran. In no way does that qualify him as serving Western interests.

[josephpalazzo]

Sun Tzu ain't got nothin on you does he?

If you want tactics, then read him. But for long term strategy, Liddell Hart does a better job..

[SGOS]

It could also be an excuse to wipe out whole groups that oppose.. .well..everyone but themselves. I'm no fan of Assad, but also no fan of the extremists pouring into Syria and lettïng them slug it out keeps hundreds of thousands in the crosshairs of both sides. This is damned if you do, damned if you don't. None of the above option isn't palletable and neither is starting a new war, but one group who loves it is the people pouring money into defense contracting and who always wins when massive amounts of bombing takes place.

Yeah, it's kind of like choosing the least worst option, whatever that might be.

[Shiranu]

Assad has been buying weapons from Russia, but he takes his marching orders from Iran. In no way does that qualify him as serving Western interests.

Bashir has been living in relative peace with the Israelis and did not stir up any mess until he began the mass murder of his own people, something the West is more than content with as evidence by our support of genocidal regimes both now and in the past. They did of course provide shelter and most likely arms to groups like Hezbollah but have not been major players in that.

The rebels on the other hand have sizable segments both anti-Israel and anti-Western amongst other radical agendas, and these segments are generally the more violent than those who were fighting for democracy, making them most likely to end up on top of the pile at the end of the day if the rebels win.

So yes, between the two options, keeping Bashir Al-Asad in power is keeping the person who better serves Western interests. It's a lose-lose situation, but from a strictly political POV it is better the mass murderer stay in power who generates small waves than radical groups that will commit the same, if not worse, atrocities against the people once they come into power and will be less predictable and harbour stronger grudges against us.

The best option would have been to support the pro-democracy groups and try to sway them into becoming pro-Western as well, but unfortunately we are a few years too late and they are now dead.

[SGOS]

It seems likely from the anecdotal evidence that chemical weapons in some form were used, but that's about it. Not even the UN inspectors, the people tasked with trying to investigate the context of the attacks, know much more than the media reporting do. All we have is eye-witness accounts of the results of the attack(s), not who used them or even why.

There is clearly not enough evidence at this moment in time to commit to an offensive strike (against what is still unclear!), but we're going to do it anyway.

Thanks, I didn't know where the inspections teams were currently at.  How about manufacturing plants that make chemical weapons?  The gas had to come from somewhere.  Have they identified specific sites that could be targeted?

[Colanth]

Al-Asad serves more Western interests than the rebels it appears, so I am surprised we are seriously considering attacking him.

It's what we do, both as individuals and as a government - we vote against our best interests.  (It's what happens with a universal franchise, and religion being foremost in people's education.)