I get what you're saying, but, got to maintain the con to make the sell. Putin is a tough guy, I'm sure he'll take a meaningless slap in the face for some $xxxM/$B in future sales. Plus on the world stage he gets to see Kerry and Obama looks like F'ing idiots while he looks good. That's an easy trade if you're Putin...
woolfe9998
Lifer
- Apr 8, 2013
- 16,242
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If this deal is actually closed, I don't think Obama/Kerry are going to come off looking like idiots. It's going to look like we disarmed Syria of WMD because we threatened military action but didn't even have to fire a shot. Sure, they mishandled a lot of this and probably lucked into this outcome, but I think that's how it will be perceived.
Now if there's an actual military strike then I think they're looking like idiots or worse.
The thing that you unconditional partisans never seem to understand is that your insistence on criticizing absolutely everything that Obama does, no matter what it is, what the circumstances are, or what the result is, undermines your own credibility far more than his. I simply don't take seriously anything you have to say about Obama, because your posts reflect a total lack of objectivity with respect to him. Since nothing he says or does will ever be good enough for you, your assessment of any particular move as not being good enough simply has little meaning.
I didn't see the speech, but when you say "deer in the headlights look!" I can't take it credibly, because you'd pretty much say that no matter what.
This is why you guys keep losing elections. You just don't understand why others refuse to hate Obama as much as you do, and you can't comprehend that anyone who doesn't hate him after 5 years of your efforts is not likely to be convinced to start now.
I don't know if this whole thing was planned or not. Maybe Kerry was supposed to float this trial balloon out there; maybe he was just running at the mouth. I do know that I'm happy that there appears to be a way out of this that avoids bloodshed and further entanglement of the US in the area. In addition to that, this essentially shifts the onus for the problem off of us and onto Syria and Russia, where it belongs.
I don't care much how we got there, just that we did. It's a hell of a lot better than what the last guy did in the Middle East, an electrical socket we can't seem to help sticking our fingers into.
And sorry, but you don't know whether this was planned or not either.
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First of all, who's 'we'? The Bush people didn't 'fall for' WMD, they intentionally pushed the story knowing they didn't have the evidence for it. Some people 'fell for' their story.
Second, this is different. We so often make the mistake in policy of reacting t the last situation.
If we're too fast war last time, we have to not go to war the next. If we're too slow to war the last time, we won't make that mistake this time, go to war!
There is no question, it seems, that Sarin was used to kill a lot of Syrian civilians, and strong evidence that Assad's regime did it, as the President laid out last night.
Sorry, but his credibility on these things is a lot higher than Bush's IMO. This isn't about the facts of the Sarin attacks, it's not about 'falling for' a lie about them.
It's about deciding what the right response is to their use.
You're mixing up the civil war with the WMD use.
It's also not about the US getting into the civil war, mostly - but on this one there is a bit of an issue.
This is primarily about responding to the use of Sarin, not the civil war. Assad has killed over 100,000 people, while the US has done little. That's both a tragic situation and one in which Obama has not gotten very involved other than some minor support like some guns - right or wrong.
However, the resolution the Senate committee passed added an amendment by John McCain making it the US policy to take actions which WILL be enough to turn the tide of the civil war in favor of the rebels - so the Congress to this point has raised our getting more involved, though not with troops. But the full Congress has been unlikely to pass it.
And you're also ignoring that this isn't simply a civil war. Assad has the backing of Russia and Iran against the rebels.
This comes up over and over, about dictators versus their own people. Historically sometimes we're the country backing the dictator; sometimes others are as in this case.
These situations are always tragic wars - just saying 'we have no business' no matter how ruthless the killing of the people (or how bad the rebels) is problematic. If we hadn't been at war with Germany in WWII, would the holocaust have been 'any of our business' to consider taking action to protect the victims in?
There's a case for the US 'taking sides' in civil wars, hopefully in favor of a side for the right reasons and not for the wrong ones (hey, they dictator sells his resources to us, cheap).
Consider the uprising in Libya - we took sides. Analysts say without outside help the rebels would have been slaughted. But the west got involved, and the rebels won.
Was it wrong to not just stand by while the people under that dictator were slaughtered? And the rest left powerless under tyranny?
But even though there is a case to get involved in some civil wars - this issue isn't about getting involved in Syria's. It would have an effect on it - but it's about the Sarin use.
You didn't answer Obama's question - if the use of Sari gets no response, what's to stop its being used against and again, by more and more dictators, with impunity?
It was likely a blindside. There are a few reasons for this.
One is that credible reporting, with White House sources, that would tend to catch if it weren't, found that it was.
Second was how it was done. While officials are not above planting questions at news conferences to get a message out they want - remmember the examle of an IRS official doing that to leak the information about the issue with how some returns were processed - there are some real questions whether the question here was planted, and much less likely at a foreign news conference.
Especially convincing though was the way Kerry laid it out. The way he did it was pretty inconsistent with it being a 'trial balloon' they wanted to float.
Jon Stewart seemed to pretty accurately describe how it happened (he referred to it as a 'McGoo accidentally stumbling onto a solution) when he described it as Kerry being nothing but condescending and a "dick" in how he did it - with Kerry saying as he proposed it that it "can't be done", and the State Department issuing a statement the same day to emphasize that Kerry was only speaking 'rhetorically' and not making an actual offer.
Both Kerry's saying it "can't be done" and the State Department statement that it was rhetorical and not an option make no sense if it really were a planned trial balloon.
No, this was likely the Obama administration accidentally stumbling onto a peaceful option.
There's always a small chance it was a sophisticated plan, despite the isues above, but not at all likely, despite how well it meets Obama's political needs, having stumbled (that word again) into a messy situation where he had committed the US to action that he found himself politically unable to back up, without the votes in Congress or much public support.
I will say though - that absent the points above why this wasn't planned, this probably was the way to float the baloon. It'd be nice if Obama and Kerry were that good at it.
Perhaps later we'll get some more confirmation one way or the other, something that almost only Kerry and Obama could confirm one way or the other.
Of course, they'd have an interest in it looking like it was their idea, but let's give them credit that they wouldn't lie about that later.
It is a little funny how similar it is to Bush's ultimatum that Saddam could avoid war - something few believe - if he had left Iraq quickly.
We do like to have these little offers for an enemy to turn down to make it look like it was their fault there's a war started.
We did the same thing in Bosnia, when we offered a 'peace plan' that analysts say we know there was no way would be accepted, calling for unlimited military occupation - but the very offering of that 'peace plan' knowing it would not be accepted gave political cover that 'he turned down the peace plan, so we had to attack'.
That's how these things usually work, it's just cover for war, not a real offer.
Why not? It's called "putting on a show" and is a fairly standard part of diplomacy.
It's really not possible to tell genuineness from very good acting with these things.
At any rate, I still don't care. If he blundered into a good solution, well, maybe he deserves credit for even coming up with the hypothetical. It wouldn't be the first time a great solution started with "this probably won't work, but..."
False flag is a very good question to ask - and I think the answer is no.
Let's look at what false flag means for a moment - it means committing an attack and making it look like someone else did, in order to get support for attacking them.
The US famously considered a false flag attack in 'Operation Northwood', suggestions the US do any of a number of false flag attacks to make it look like Cuba had done them, from shellig our base at Guantanamo to faking the downing of an airliner - a plan with the unanimous endorsement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff but rejected by Kennedy and McNamara.
A possible false flag operation was the explosion of the USS Maine - also in Cuba - blamed on the Spanish to start war with them (more likely it was an accidental explosion).
Similar in principle is when one force pushed an enemy - usually a stronger one - to attack it in a way designed to simiilarly get support for was on that enemy.
Rebel groups - called terrorist groups if you disagree with them - will do this, killing policemen, teachers and so on, to get the authorities to respond to them strongly enough as to get a backlash. This also happened in Bosnia. The Muslim Crots were regularly killing these sorts of people that finally got Milosevich to use military force against them - and the Croats literally had a US ad agency ready with an ad campaign telling the world Milosevich's attack showed he was a 'modern Hitler', and their plan worked beautifully.
That's not to say how much Milosevich was or wasn't a terrible dictator - but that that technique of getting him to attack and getting a backlash worked well to get support.
This was really a prime reason behind 9/11. Osama was frustrated at his lack of support by Muslims, who were something like 95% opposed to him. So he attacked the US to try to get the US to respond with a military attack on a Muslim nation, hoping that would outrage Muslims, who would unite against the US for that attack - and support for Al Queda would increase. Not exactly 'false flag', but a similar principle.
So given that there is such a thing, why couldn't the Sarin attacks have been launched by the rebels themselves to draw the US into helping them against Assad?
This comes down to a series of questions - would the rebels have launched such a large attack (an argument in favor is that they had reported a few very small attacks, which did not get the US to respond and which some analysts suggestedmade little sense as attacks by Assad, suggesting they might well have been false flags, and so a larger attack was needed to draw the US in)? Do you trust the Obama administration on its claims?
On the latter point, I do. They have the technology for this. They say they have evidence of the attack being planned by the regime, of gas masks being given to their forces, but most importantly that they have evidence regime generals reviewed the evidence of the Sarin attacks - and then ordered more of them. I wouldn't trust the Bush administration on this - who claimed they knew exactly where all the WMD were, 'north, south, east and west of Baghdad' - but I am more trusting of Obama not to lie about this issue.
This makes a lot of sense as a 'false flag' operation - but I think there's plenty of evidence that it's not one. That's not Obama's history, to go down like Bush on this when exposed.
That very much seems to be the case. Reporting from Syria suggests they were very concerned about that attack and that was why they were interested in this plan.
alkemyst
No Lifer
- Feb 13, 2001
- 83,769
- 19
- 81
Ok, Champ. When I say "we" I am talking about the American people. They were practically chomping at the bit for justice. I realize it's all a shell game though. We are in a power play of our ultra wealthy and government allied with them to set a stage of finally going back to pretty much those with money and those without it.
However; this lead to tons of profits for our uber wealthy, the patriot act and other total bullshit laws, and a general push to socialism.
Syria is a moot point though. It's their civil war. It's not affecting our GDP, nor our allies. However; us jumping in can set the stage for a lot of battles outside that conflict.
The problem is China, Israel, North Korea and even the al Qaeda and Hezbollah have been trying to help each side in Syria (pretty much the military/government and military/government to be...not the civilians). The US is finally now trying to get into the money to be had there and also in it's real policy now: wealth redistribution.
We go in there we make some dough, act the hero to get some leaders secure...we are pissing all those nations off and also through rumors Russia. Russia is getting very cold to the US again....they are in bed with China. That is a serious matter to me.
In my opinion, tell them since they did that they lose their UN membership. That's what really should be done. In America, everyone gets many chances and in school they don't even keep score in sports anymore.
It's about money, not well-being.
You know and I know they violated UN laws. Kick them to the curb.
I agree, but our solution should not be entering the fray. Disbar them. They are already in bed with non-UN nations and the membership is providing a level of protection.
No, I know this. Let them have Syria. This is probably the agenda Syria has. You can't just say "Hey, I am leaving the UN"...in my thoughts some are about to get up from the table.
I agree in some of this. The problem was during that many learned how wealthy they could become. It's all about money now. In all fairness, I don't think since BC it hasn't; just the scraps sent down the line got smaller and smaller.
I think we should not have been there. I am not going for some conspiracy theory crap, but it's clear someone helped those rebels. Libya wasn't our threat though.
Sarin has been around a long time. I'd expect dictators to use it. We have MAJOR ISSUES in our own country that need to be focused on.
Let the nations just slaughter themselves internally if they desire. The US should not play peace keeper.
We are actually causing our own problems as far as foreign nations wanting to attack us goes.
I am waiting for the staged event that all the nations we borrowed from call in their markers and we tell them: "Hey bro, I can't pay today!"
No offense, but I have no idea what you said there. What wealth politcs has to do with Syra's use of Sarin.
As above - but if you're suggesting that our position should be that we turn a blind eye to the use of Sarin because it's profitable for us not to annoy Russia, I dont agree.
I very much disagree with that. Monstrous nations belong in the UN. That's a main purpose of the UN - dialogue over problems.
Having them there to be confronted with what they've done, to demand answers and for them to have a chance to respond - like Saddam saying he didn't have WMD - is helpful.
Kicking a country doing bad things does nothing but end an opportunity for dialogue, for exposing them, for issuing demands, for looking for solutions.
The requirement to be in the UN isn't that a country is 'good', it's simply that it be a country.
The idea is for countries doing good and bad to have communication.
I don't know what protection the UN membership is offering them. Iran is in the UN, and suffering massive sanctions from them.
"Let them have Syria" is one thing, "let Syria use unlimited Srain gas" is another.
Remember though that these dictatorships were always about the profits for the powers keeping them in power - the wealth of the dictators was just a smaller side issue.
That was the deal - 'you rule your country in a way that is profitable to us, selling us your resources and labor cheaply, and however much hate that causes by your oppressed people, we'll keep you in power with the use of force, and you will be given a cut making you wealthy'.
You think we should have let Qadafi slaughter all his people rebelling? We disagree.
You're combining two different things.
One is the humanitarian intervention - whether it might be 'stop the holocaust', or 'stop a genocide', or 'stop a mass slaughter', or 'stop the use of WMD'. The other is our intervention to take power where it's for our own interest at the expense of people - for example where we are intervening by propping up a dictator.
The first of those is not what's creating a backlash against us - quite the contrary it creates gratitude generally, but at least not backlash.
It's the second type of interference that created backlash.
Our intervening against the use of Sarin is not what's going to make us enemies - with few exceptions, and those are enemies worth having, like Assad.
What you're advocating is an isolationism in the face of humanitarian disasters, I disagree.
Your last point is about the cost bankrupting us - we have big problems with an oversized miltary budget, but these humanitarian actions are not what's breaking the bank.
We can afford them.
AViking
Platinum Member
- Sep 12, 2013
- 2,264
- 1
- 0
1. They need to prove that chemical weapons were used. I think they've done this.
2. They need to prove who fired them. This has not been done.
Unlike situations like Rwanda, the Holocaust, and Yugoslavia the Syrians can leave. They do not have to sit there and take it. They can ditch the country and start their lives elsewhere if they don't like it there.
I'm not saying that's the greatest thing to do but we're talking about military intervention and I really think the bar needs to be higher than a he said she said situation which is what this is shaping up to be and is exactly what Iraq turned out to be.
2. They need to prove who fired them. This has not been done.
Unlike situations like Rwanda, the Holocaust, and Yugoslavia the Syrians can leave. They do not have to sit there and take it. They can ditch the country and start their lives elsewhere if they don't like it there.
I'm not saying that's the greatest thing to do but we're talking about military intervention and I really think the bar needs to be higher than a he said she said situation which is what this is shaping up to be and is exactly what Iraq turned out to be.
That's not a very reasonable 'option'. Over two million have already overwhelmed the neighboring countries as refugees in terrible poverty. 30% have abandoned their homes.
Some commentary from perhaps the leading anti-war investigative journalist in England:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/11-3
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/11-3
AViking
Platinum Member
- Sep 12, 2013
- 2,264
- 1
- 0
Options:
1. International community steps in and solves the problem diplomatically
2. They solve it militarily
3. Status Quo / Civil War
Am I right?
Seems to me that if I was Syrian I would leave. Now. There are tons of places they can go. It won't be easy. It will be arguably one of the most difficult things they'll have to do. However given the option of sticking around and enduring either a civil war or international military confrontation then it seems that leaving is a good idea until things get better.
They can place bets I suppose on the situation solving itself diplomatically in a timely fashion. They have plenty of examples in the world to look at for historical reference. It's already been 2 years, 5 months and 3 weeks. I'd leave.
If you have the option to leave then you should do so when things get really bad. Starvation, joblessness, disease, civil war, etc. Leave.
Go home when it's better.
1. International community steps in and solves the problem diplomatically
2. They solve it militarily
3. Status Quo / Civil War
Am I right?
Seems to me that if I was Syrian I would leave. Now. There are tons of places they can go. It won't be easy. It will be arguably one of the most difficult things they'll have to do. However given the option of sticking around and enduring either a civil war or international military confrontation then it seems that leaving is a good idea until things get better.
They can place bets I suppose on the situation solving itself diplomatically in a timely fashion. They have plenty of examples in the world to look at for historical reference. It's already been 2 years, 5 months and 3 weeks. I'd leave.
If you have the option to leave then you should do so when things get really bad. Starvation, joblessness, disease, civil war, etc. Leave.
Go home when it's better.
Do you have any idea of their options? You think they like the destitute refugee camps?
Jordan, following their culture, attempted to be very welcoming and bring these refugee steangers into their homes - very charitable.
Until after several hundred thousand they were just overwhelmed.
The world is not beginning to provide enough aid for the situation.
Jordan has a population of six million - with over a million Syrian refugees. And a water shortage. And these refugees taking work for low wages from Jordanians.
Countries don't just 'move'. Name a civil war where all the people left the country.
AViking
Platinum Member
- Sep 12, 2013
- 2,264
- 1
- 0
Made me laugh a bit.
Of course those that choose to stay and fight will do so.
Without sidetracking the thread into an immigration thread I think one simple solution is for more countries to accept them. Only 30,000 Libyans made it to Europe. Only 466 Iraqis made it to the USA.
I'm arguing that the suffering of these people can be minimized by them simply leaving the shithole they live in. The Irish did it during their famine. Although not just due to famine there was a total of 1,500,000 Irish that emigrated. The USA was founded and later populated by people who were not welcome in Europe and fled to practice their religion in the new world. Look at how many Persians left after the revolution and during the Iraq-Iran War.
Ethiopians did not have a way to flee their famine of the 1980's. Rwanda's genocide was inescapable. The strife in Syria is at least avoidable
alkemyst
No Lifer
- Feb 13, 2001
- 83,769
- 19
- 81
Life can suck at times. It's not up to the 'world' to fix everyone's problems that don't try to fix them themselves.
A lot of this situation was due to the nation not taking making those hard and risky choices in the beginning to keep them getting to where they are now.
What about the millions here in America that don't have shelter nor food to eat?
How are they different than the Syrians?
What kind of blame the victime blather is that? Those Syrian refugees don't want to fix their country!
Same questin as above. It's the civilians' fault! Not the dictator and his foreign allies who keep him in power.
Helping Americans and helping refugees are not mutually exclusive.
alkemyst
No Lifer
- Feb 13, 2001
- 83,769
- 19
- 81
The people of Syria were blind if they didn't see where being passive to this situation would lead. People choose to do nothing anymore and then hope someone else will remove them from their plight.
Yet I never see you defending our own people here.
Our involvement in Syria will be less about saving the Syrian people and more about going after those aiding them / making war profits.
SparkyJJO
Lifer
- May 16, 2002
- 13,357
- 7
- 81
I'm friggin' tired of playing world police. We can't even fix and afford our own problems as it is.
Why are so many for Obama doing this when Bush doing the same thing in Iraq was hated so much? Oh wait, it is because it is a democrat doing it this time, not a republican, of course they'll fall into line behind him
Why are so many for Obama doing this when Bush doing the same thing in Iraq was hated so much? Oh wait, it is because it is a democrat doing it this time, not a republican, of course they'll fall into line behind him
AViking
Platinum Member
- Sep 12, 2013
- 2,264
- 1
- 0
I'm friggin' tired of playing world police. We can't even fix and afford our own problems as it is.
Why are so many for Obama doing this when Bush doing the same thing in Iraq was hated so much? Oh wait, it is because it is a democrat doing it this time, not a republican, of course they'll fall into line behind him
Are "so many" people really for this in the USA? Gallup has a number of polls up and I think you'll find your statement incorrect.
Even when people are attempting to pay attention they are not getting the right information to work with. Recently a Pulitzer prize winning journalist blew the whistle about CNN's misrepresentation of middle east. Al Jazeera has had over 20 journalists leave in protest because of one sided reporting since the Arab Spring began.
Because of this faulty reporting I plan to put myself in harms way to at least attempt to provide accurate information to the public, specifically in Syria.
link deleted
Self-promotion is not allowed.
Administrator allisolm
Because of this faulty reporting I plan to put myself in harms way to at least attempt to provide accurate information to the public, specifically in Syria.
link deleted
Self-promotion is not allowed.
Administrator allisolm
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- Jun 10, 2004
- 14,600
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On the one hand, Bashar al-Assad is an oppressive tyrant. On the other hand, there are many Islamists among the rebels who are already equally or even more oppressive and brutal towards minorities. Not to mention helping them is tantamount to sponsoring more regional (and possibly worldwide) terror.
It's a turd sandwich. The US should stay out of it.
It's a turd sandwich. The US should stay out of it.
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