Should the US attack Syria?

[Murloc]

If the UN can't agree on doing something, then the world is definitely not agreeing on this.
So it would be the US being world cop all over again.

Also the Chemical Weapons Convention wasn't signed by Syria, nor by Israel for that matter, so that law doesn't really apply to them.
It would be like saying that we have to bomb the United States because they have cluster bombs, to teach them a lesson.

That said, at this point Obama should go ahead with it or no one will believe US threats and red lines anymore. Whatever is done, everyone loses.

 

[Craig234]

I do not keep up with politics as I should, but my wife and I were talking about this a bit (she keeps up better than I do). Maybe you guys would enlighten me a bit.

First off, why in the would are we going into a situation where we're not even sure who the enemy is? Last I heard that depended on what country you asked.

This isn't about who the enemy is - that's another issue with the civil war.

This is about who is using WMD to kill people.

We've had enough of basing our reaction to that based on our 'interests'. We're not doing it because we are politically aligned with the hundreds of children killed by Sarin.

Second, why are we going into a situation that seems to have so little to do with us?

Out of humanitarian concern and a desire to not allow the use of those weapons.

And, are we still riding on the fact that we didn't do enough to prevent the twin towers bombing?

This has nothing to do with that.

And to answer fuzzybabybunny's question, the information I have seen shows no good reason for us to enter this situation right now.

Thousands of civilians killed by Sarin with more to come is a good reason.

Deterring others using Sarin is a good reason.

 

[Fern]

Killing someone with an RPG has FAR less collateral damage than with chemical weapons. They're not even on the same level. That is the very reason chemical weapons are outlawed and why this is more or less the only thing that countries worldwide have agreed on. Chemical weapons are simply too indiscriminate in killing EVERYTHING. Chemical weapons are basically a blanket tool of terror. If there was a weapon capable of releasing clouds of radioactivity into the air to be blown wherever it pleases, would you think that is the same as using an RPG to kill a group of soldiers in a truck?
-snip-

You focus too much on an RPG. It was mentioned because in war we do not kill humanely. We kill in mass numbers.

Bombing has as much collateral damage as this gas attack. You can't bomb an urban area without killing civilians. Heck, even our 'pinpoint' missile attacks on AQ out on deserted roadways (or small villages in Afghanistan/Pakistan) in have killed many children etc.

My main point is that I reject this latest gas attack as a seminal moment that irresistibly requires military action:

1. The other ways that people are killed is no more humane than gas.

2. I believe the killing of civilians is what is of import here. And in excess of 100,000 civilians are said to have been killed so far. Why now is it suddenly so important, so different?

3. This is widely said to have been the 14th gas attack killing civilians. What makes this one so special?

Once you realize this, you'll realize you're being emotionally stampeded into a poorly thought-out attack for political purposes (saving face) that may have serious unintended consequences. So, no need to rush. We can take our time (and by "our time" I mean those of many nations) to make deliberate and well thought out decisions/plans.

Fern

 

[Fern]

Is there proof that it was Assad's gov't that used the chemical weapons, rather than a desperation move by the rebels to pull the US in to support them?

Obama, Biden and Kerry claim there is.

However, it may be wise of them to not disclose such info yet. To disclose it would back them further into the corner and do more to prevent the chance that they can say no attack because it cannot be proven conclusively. I've missed some recent speeches by the admin because of the Labor day holiday, but to my knowledge they haven't used the term "conclusively" yet to describe their evidence.

Once that info is out, it's out and it can't be taken back. IMO, a big part of Obama's problem is putting too many thing out, too quickly and without sufficient thought. This might be a good time to stop that.

Fern

 

[Fern]

If the UN can't agree on doing something, then the world is definitely not agreeing on this.
So it would be the US being world cop all over again.

Also the Chemical Weapons Convention wasn't signed by Syria, nor by Israel for that matter, so that law doesn't really apply to them.
It would be like saying that we have to bomb the United States because they have cluster bombs, to teach them a lesson.

That said, at this point Obama should go ahead with it or no one will believe US threats and red lines anymore. Whatever is done, everyone loses.

IMO, too late, way too late.

His threat has gone from "cross this red line and I'll kick your butt" to "cross the red line and I'll tattle to Congress".

Fern

 

[Ketchup]

IMO, too late, way too late.

His threat has gone from "cross this red line and I'll kick your butt" to "cross the red line and I'll tattle to Congress".

Fern

I wonder if any Democrats/Liberals are disappointed with this?

 

[Engineer]

Why do we need to again be the world's policeman?

This.

 

[denis280]

Why do we need to again be the world's policeman?

Agree with this.as a Canadien Citizen For sure we are going to be involve in this.and more peace keeper will be send and shot again.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

Reports: Sarin's been used in Syria before

World leaders have said previously that sarin has been used in the Syrian civil war.

In April, the United States said it had evidence sarin was used in Syria on a small scale.

In May, a U.N. official said there were strong suspicions that rebel forces used the deadly nerve agent.

In June, France said sarin had been used several times in the war, including at least once by the Syrian regime.

China 'gravely concerned'

"We are gravely concerned that some country may take unilateral military actions," Chinese foreign affairs spokesman Hong Lei said Monday.

"We believe that any action taken by the international community should abide by the purposes and principles of the U.N. charter ... so as to avoid complicating the Syrian issue and bringing more disasters to the Middle East region."

The United Nations, meanwhile, said evidence that could show whether chemical weapons were used in Syria was being delivered to a lab on Monday. But a U.N. spokesman would not estimate how long it may take to get results. Even when results are released, they won't show who was responsible.

Russia: 'There are no such facts'

Russia rejects Kerry's claim that the U.S. already has answers.

"We absolutely were not convinced by that (evidence) that our American partners, as well as the British and the French, showed us," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, according to the state-run RIA Novosti news agency.

"There are no facts, there's only talk about what we know for certain. When we ask for more detailed evidence, they say, 'You know, it's all secret, so we can't show you.' That means that there are no such facts."

 

[Craig234]

The US has capabilities on things like monitoring actions and communications by the Syrian military leadership.

Unfortunately, the US reputation to 'trust us' has been greatly damaged by the Bush administration's lies to go to war.

The Syrians,the Chinese, have not hesitated to point this out; our closest ally, England, had their prime minister say 'the well of public opinion has been poisoned by Iraq'.

Further hurting the problem is that the US has political interests in crippling Syria. While we prop up our ally in the Middle East Israel, we like to see Israel's enemies weakened. We got to see that with the war between Iraq and Iran; and we see it again as Syria is weakened by civil war.

So we have our own agenda against Syria - raising questions even if we're right.

There was a time the US was more trusted in the world - the world believed our information in the Cubn Missile Crisis.

What accountability has there been for the US's lying to go to war in Iraq? None. No one went to jail for it. No punishment happened for it. So yes, there's resentment.

There's some irony in the US demanding - reasonably - accountability and punishment for 'violation of international norms' for Syria using Sarin, but evading any accountability or punishment for our own violation of international norms when it comes to starting a war of aggression.

Admittedly, Saddam was a bad dictator - but there are rules against aggressive war for a reason. And much of that war was done horribly, hurting the people of Iraq to today.

It set a precedent for the US to be able to launch a war at anyone it wants to for our own 'power interests', something the world is right to oppose (and we should too - and saying 'well we elected someone for eight years who doesn't do that' isn't much comfort to the world when there could be a new George Bush or John McCain or Mitt Romney in 2016).

There's an ongoing tension between our interest to always have more power, as that leads to our wanting to be a bit more 'ruler of the world' all the time, and the world interest in preserving its autonomy and not having any nation as 'the world's only superpower able to threaten anyone it wants'.

That tension isn't made much easier by cases where the US is on the 'right' side, as in opposing Syra's use of Sarin, but having to act alone if we do. That helps strengthen the case for US power - even while increasing the threat of the danger of the US misuing that power in another situation, such as with oil politics or other economic interests. We could bring up dozens of cases from the overthrow of Salvadore Allende in Chile and installing Pinochet, to the 1953 Iran coup.

 

[Craig234]

IMO, too late, way too late.

His threat has gone from "cross this red line and I'll kick your butt" to "cross the red line and I'll tattle to Congress".

Fern

Darn him respecting the constitution. Didn't he learn anything from Bush?

Ya, he probably said the 'red line' stuff poorly.

 

[Ketchup]

Glad he is not taking this lying down.

Biden: "Are you trying to seduce me Mr. President?"

 

[Craig234]

The way I see this, Obama does not have a strong case under the constitution for taking action without congressional approval.

Politically, it's been more possible for a couple reasons - some pundits have pointed out that Congress loves to 'ask questions' so they can say 'I was against this' if it becomes a political liability, but has effectively handed over their power so they can avoid the accountability of having voted on it; and the simply practical poblem that the president can order a strike, and there's not much Congress can fo about it short of impeachment or suing, neither of which is likely to go well for them.

In this case, the politics seem to have pressured Obama to get approval, when 30% of Congress signs a public letter demanding he do so and the legal case seems strong.

That makes it kind of win-win for Obama; if 'yes', he has Congress on the hook for his policy; if 'no', it gives him an out from action, and an election issue for next year (presumably the no votes would be mostly Republican, and they could be attacked for allowing the use of Sarin without any punishment).

It could also make Congress look pretty inept at its conctitutional role for deciding these things, strengthening the president's political strength to grab that power.

 

[DaveSimmons]

The US has capabilities on things like monitoring actions and communications by the Syrian military leadership.

Unfortunately, the US reputation to 'trust us' has been greatly damaged by the Bush administration's lies to go to war.

And eroded further after that by the revelations that unconstitutional spying has continued and even increased under Obama.

I voted for Obama twice, but I believe he's been lying to us in his statements about intelligence gathering, and his "independent" reform panel is a joke.

Given that he feels free to lie to me about that aspect of intelligence gathering I cant give him the benefit of the doubt when he says "trust me" as the reason to go to war.

 

[Ketchup]

Given that he feels free to lie to me about that aspect of intelligence gathering I cant give him the benefit of the doubt when he says "trust me" as the reason to go to war.

Given this, can you take his word on anything?

 

[sze5003]

I don't think there should be an attack. It will turn out like Iraq. Say they bomb a compound and that gas gets released everywhere killing more than just militants. Civilians will get sick and die as well in a large radius of the area. Then what, America gets blamed.

They should leave it up to the world court and UN to deal with this. As said before Syria did not sign the wmd pact that other countries took part in. What will the US sending troops there do? Many American Syrians are against it over here too. They also fear being persecuted because of it. A lot of these Syrians here in the US are Christians so it's not a matter of religion.

 

[Craig234]

And eroded further after that by the revelations that unconstitutional spying has continued and even increased under Obama.

I voted for Obama twice, but I believe he's been lying to us in his statements about intelligence gathering, and his "independent" reform panel is a joke.

Given that he feels free to lie to me about that aspect of intelligence gathering I cant give him the benefit of the doubt when he says "trust me" as the reason to go to war.

There's really no conflict betwen having voted for Obama twice, and having serious criticisms of him, given the alternatives you had.

It's not that I don't 'trust him' when it comes to his claims about our information about the Syrian regime using Sarin.

Rather, issues lie with everything from the precedent of 'trusting' the next times the president, whoever that is, asks for it,

I do have to agree with you I think Obama has been rather dishonest about parts of the national security establishment. He seems to be in that 'weak Democrat' position where he gains in his own power by caving to the security establishment, rather than being their master as intended on behalf of the American people, resulting in things like his war on whistleblowers while saying the opposite, including his embarrassing lie about how he had totally supported the debate the Snowden leaks triggered.

Stronger democrats have challenged the security establishment when needed. Truman wrote a 1963 article saying the CIA had gone out of control with its operational activities from what he had intended when he created the agency, Kennedy planned to overhal it to reign it in, a democratic Senate had the Church hearings exposing CIA abuses and creating some new limits for the agency.

But more recently, Clinton was blocked by Colin Powell on gays in the military and was politically forced to settle for Don't Ask, Don't Tell, while Obama has seemed to cave.

This isn't even to take sides on the issue - most of the NSA activities might have a good justification - but just to express concern when the president doesn't run them strongly.

We saw some of the same problems when Reagan gave a free hand to the security establishment - see central American US-supported death squads and Iran Contra for a start - or when George W. Bush basically handed the governmnet over to Cheney and the necons in many areas giving us the terrible approach to Iraq and other things.

There is a post-WWII 'security establishment' that can be a problem, going back to FDR's desire for the Pentagon to be a temporary war building out of concern over the security establishment becoming too powerful, to Eisenhower's famous speech warning of the 'undue influence' that establishment threated to the country.

 

[Jaskalas]

One concern of mine is, even if this is meant to warn against WMDs, we're neither removing the men responsible nor the weapons themselves. Any limited engagement is, IMO, deemed ineffective at actual resolution to the problem of WMDs.

Neither am I thrilled at the prospect of going "all in" over something I don't see as a threat or really having much to do with us at all. Made worse by my feelings and disagreements over our nation building efforts after such invasions.

If you were to tell me that we'd go in with force, destroy the WMDs, and ENSURE the job is done, then leave quickly - then MAYBE I could sign off on such a plan. Everyone knows that isn't / will not be our plan. If we even have one aside from "lob a few missiles".

Acts of war should be done with purpose, and I just don't see one here.

 

[Craig234]

One concern of mine is, even if this is meant to warn against WMDs, we're neither removing the men responsible nor the weapons themselves. Any limited engagement is, IMO, deemed ineffective at actual resolution to the problem of WMDs.

Neither am I thrilled at the prospect of going "all in" over something I don't see as a threat or really having much to do with us at all. Made worse by my feelings and disagreements over our nation building efforts after such invasions.

If you were to tell me that we'd go in with force, destroy the WMDs, and ENSURE the job is done, then leave quickly - then MAYBE I could sign off on such a plan. Everyone knows that isn't / will not be our plan. If we even have one aside from "lob a few missiles".

Acts of war should be done with purpose, and I just don't see one here.

The purpose is to punish him enough that it's not worth using WMD again. Both the cost of the attack and the threat of more if he were to do it again.

 

[Jaskalas]

The purpose is to punish him enough that it's not worth using WMD again. Both the cost of the attack and the threat of more if he were to do it again.

Afraid I just don't see where that "cost" is going to materialize. Especially with weeks, months? of advanced notice.

If I were advising Assad, I might say use the Chemicals again - day after we strike. Cause we're obviously not going to stop it.

 

[Craig234]

Afraid I just don't see where that "cost" is going to materialize. Especially with weeks, months? of advanced notice.

If I were advising Assad, I might say use the Chemicals again - day after we strike. Cause we're obviously not going to stop it.

The cost can be there even with advance notice. That would be bad advice, as the punishment would escalate greatly with continued WMD use.

 

[Orignal Earl]

Why do we need to again be the world's policeman?

Has the world determined that an attack should be made?

I've learned over the last couple of weeks that there is two versions of the worlds police myth
There is a lot of Americans who believe the world wants them to be the police, and only a few that think the US gov wants to be the world police.
Whenever I've seen it used I always thought it was being used by Americans to condemn their gov
Which version are you using?

 

[EagleKeeper]

I've learned over the last couple of weeks that there is two versions of the worlds police myth
There is a lot of Americans who believe the world wants them to be the police, and only a few that think the US gov wants to be the world police.
Whenever I've seen it used I always thought it was being used by Americans to condemn their gov
Which version are you using?

I am tired of the United States going into regions at the request of other countries to attempt to straighten out the mess with all the cheerleaders in the background.

Example Syria:
There are all the countries in the area that are making noises about Syria and their civil war.
Even the Organization of Arab states has condemned Syria.
Yet not one is willing to do more than lip service officially. Some may be supply aid to the rebels; but that is it.

Libya:
Same issue; everyone one condemned Libya; but no one wanted to do anything; They went and asked the US to do something; because if an Arab state intervened - oh the horror. And once we started to provide more than what was asked; states complained that an overkill was being done; that was not what they wanted.

Move south:
Somalia, Ethiopia, etc.
Civil wars caused starvation; People want the US to get involved; deliver aid; not the fighting. Where are the rest of the Arab/African countries.

Head East to Burma:
Same issue - disaster: everyone wrings there hands; Sees US forces nearby and want help - on their terms; Organized theft of supplies. Then blame the US for lack of supplies and organization (which was controlled by the locals)


Even in our own back yard; supplies were rotting in Haiti because there was no way to offload them. those that were offloaded were getting confiscated by locals for the black market or locked in warehouses because of logistics/bribes.

In general:
The world wants the US to get involved in every dispute and disaster because we have the funds/capabilities; are softies and a good patsy to point fingers at afterwards when everything does not come up rosy.

Every part of the world has organizations based on the geographical area that are economically and politically intertwined.

Let them organize collective efforts to solve the issues in their backyards.
IF not able to, then and only then; should the US provide assistance; but no heavy lifting.

The US has politicians and softies that recoil at pictures of damages/death and want to reach out to help people. Yet when we do; it causes problems because we are not equipped to handle to political/social requirements needed to contribute; We do it our way which does not mesh with their way.

We do not need to go into isolation mode; buts should not rush out the door without proper planning and groundwork. As well as ensuring that our services are needed because existing/ongoing is failing. Not that ongoing has not yet been tried.

 

[DaveSimmons]

The US has politicians and softies that recoil at pictures of damages/death and want to reach out to help people. Yet when we do; it causes problems because we are not equipped to handle to political/social requirements needed to contribute; We do it our way which does not mesh with their way.

This is a very good point.

Most of these countries run on bribery and corruption, but when we go in directly or by proxy it's against US law for us to grease the right palms. Even if it was legal it would be political suicide for the party in power to allow "evil" bribery or making deals with criminals or militias that are the real power in an area.

So instead of paying a (say) 25% "tax" to the local corrupt officials or a militia, we let them seize 100%, or have the supplies rot, or get the aid workers killed.

 

[BoberFett]

The cost can be there even with advance notice. That would be bad advice, as the punishment would escalate greatly with continued WMD use.

It's refreshing to see Craig support the Iraq war. After all, Saddam did use chemical weapons. So our invasion was merely following the Craig Doctrine of increasing punishment after repeated use of WMDs.