Syria

Do you think we should attack Syria?

  • Yes

    Votes: 3 6.3%
  • No

    Votes: 42 87.5%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 3 6.3%

  • Total voters
    48
  • Poll closed .

Keith

Moderator
Assuming it was Assad who delivered it of course..

There has been a curious reluctance to remove dictators over the years and I know of one very good reason why AH was never taken out even though they had a British Commando Sniper Team team in the area of Schloss Adler ready to go. And that is, cynical or not, that he was worth far more to the Allied War effort alive than he was dead.

His known military incompetence and his consistent refusal to allow his generals to give ground for tactical reasons likely cost him the war.

Sometimes a leaderless country creates a vacuum that represents a greater danger I suppose. I'm quite sure that, having the means and opportunity the Western govts must have thought long and hard about the long term future of many despots. They sent a smart bomb through Qaddafi's bedroom window did they not?
 
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Pat

Supporter
Assuming that the UN has absolute proof that the Syrian leader ordered this attack, I say bomb his homes, bomb his cars, leave his government offices a smoking hole and do not stop until he is dead or they turn him over to the World Court!

Jim, assuming that's done, the Russian, Iranian, and Syrian response would be??? If the Assad regime falls, his chemical (and perhaps biological) weapons stockpiles would be in the possession of???

I have to wonder how those questions equate in Mr. Obama's red line calculus, if at all. How does the Presidents calculus address the historical conflict between Shiite Muslims (including those from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran who have flooded into Syria to defend sacred sites and Assad's regime) and Sunni Muslims, some affiliated with al Qaeda, who have rushed in to join rebels, most of whom are Sunni. Both sides use religious rhetoric as a rallying cry, calling each other "infidels" and "Satan's army." Will our efforts help or prolong that conflict and it's death and suffering?
I would hope my congressman is aware of the answer before he casts his vote.

From the Syrian point of view, what was the U.S. response to having our "military capacity degraded" at Pearl Harbor, the UK's response to having it's "military capacity degraded" in the Blitz or Battle of Britain or Ho Chi Minh's reaction to the Rolling Thunder campaign in Vietnam? I would suggest it would be the same in Damascus. History would indicate that unless you are ready to Nuke somebody, bombing alone does not deter despots.

Remember Assad has the best air defense systems the Russians can offer. I would suspect that his personal destruction via air power is highly unlikely. It would only trigger the unknown second and third tier consequences that frankly scare the hell out me.

I'll also bet you a beer that the UN will not definitively state source of the attacks.
 

Howard Jones

Supporter
1. I see it as a measure of the risk to the USA and it's ailes. That being, are the chemical weapons in danger of being used on the USA, our allies, or against our national interests.

2. If yes, then is the risk of doing something about them greater than #1.

3. If #2 is no, then the only use of force should be to remove them from their possession.

Once the weapons are safely removed, They can go back to fighting each other until hell freezes over for all I care. One other idea is to get the Russians to get them from their surrogate with the promise not to oppose them in their interest in the conflict as long as ours are not compromised.

The other thing to do, is nothing, except to put the parties on notice that any attack on the USA, or our allies, with these weapons regardless of who uses them will be considered an act of war by the country that owns them. We will decide who we believe did and owns what if that happens.

The only acceptable result of us going to war would be a unconditional surrender of our appoenite. Resulting war criminals will be executed. Period!

Oh and move the fucking useless UN to France, Iran, Moscow, who cares . We will pay our per country share, as in, divide the cost by the number of countries in the damn thing and we will pay the same as everyone else. Then put everyone on notice that we will only do what we believe is in our interest..........just like they do!
 
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Worrying thought:

It's been several days since the presumed chemical attack in Syria. Our POTUS has indicated he may act with or without Congressional approval and attempt to destroy strategic sites in Syria that could be used in future chemical attacks. It's reasonable to assume that Assad has moved personnel and strategic items away from the sites that we disclosed as targets. Additionally, we have stated that we will not attack chemical weapons sites. What leads us to believe that Assad would not move chemical weapons to our target sites thus making us the deliverer of a chemical attack and further embarrassing the US?
 

Howard Jones

Supporter
So, let me get this straight, Boehner, Cantor, McCain, Lerch, Pelosi and BOB want to spray some missiles around and basically not destroy anything important enough to keep the targets secret, or kill anybody bad enough not to tell them the shot is on the way.

Really?, this would be funny if it wasn't real.

Oh and Grady is right, these are the WMD's that we were looking for in Iraq. Saddam made em. Clear as the nose on my face. How do I know? BOB isn't blaming Bush for the problem, someone might ask why is it Bush's fault if there never were any WMD'S in Iraq.

Americans need to say STOP! BOB fucked up and opened his mouth. He's an incompetent fool and we need to tell him to say he made a mistake and take his finger off the trigger.

Ya like that's ever gonna happen.
 

Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
Here's what the United States is doing, right now:

We are educating the world at exactly how long it will take our president and elected representatives to come to a "decision" about bombing Syria. In other words, we are watching a large group of politicians who are busily wanking about all this in Washington, while nothing happens in actual fact.

I suppose you could say that since the Syrians expected missiles to fall on them in the last week or two, we've accomplished something without even firing one missile. Personally I think the whole thing is an exercise in pointless futility. I'd be delighted if Obama DIDN'T get the approval of Congress and no missiles were shot at the Syrians. I suspect I'm hoping in vain here.
 

Jim Craik

Lifetime Supporter
Americans need to say STOP! BOB (President Obama) fucked up and opened his mouth. He's an incompetent fool and we need to tell him to say he made a mistake and take his finger off the trigger.

Howard,

So the way you see it, everything would be OK if our President had just kept his mouth shut and pretended this didn't happen? Then everything would be fine, right?

Just think of all the trouble we could have avoided if other Presidents just followed you advice.

We could have avoided the Korean war, just by pretending that the Communists were just on an organized tour of the south. If only Truman had just kept his mouth shut.

I would have been so much better if we had pretended that there were no missles in Cuba. If only Kennedy had just kept his mouth shut.

We could have avoided WW2 if we just pretended that Japan really didn't attack Pearl Harbor. If only Roosevelt had just kept his mouth shut.

We could have avoided Gulf War1 by just pretending that Iraq was really just helping Kuwait with their urban renual. If only Bush1 had just kept his mouth shut.

We could have avoided Gulf War2 if we just pretended that those were just four plane crashes. If only GW had just kept his mouth shut.

We could have avoided the Civil War if we just pretended that slaves loved being slaves, who could have a problem with that?

If only Lincoln had just kept his mouth shut.......................


The World would be a wonderful, peaceful place if we all just followed
Howards advice.............

Hear no evil
See no evil
Speak no evil

What could go wrong?
 
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Pete McCluskey.

Lifetime Supporter
No mention of Vietnam.....just a little oversight Jim?

Pat I think your post will turn out to be pretty accurate.
 
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Jim Craik

Lifetime Supporter
Well Pete, you got me there.........

As for Viet Nam,

I think we all would have been better off if we pretended that that war never happened.
 
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They sent a smart bomb through Qaddafi's bedroom window did they not?
The point is well taken. Actually, in gaddafi's case, he was sleeping in a tent on the grounds when the strike began, and afterwards we sent him the Maverick "gun camera" footage of one homing in on his tent and then pulled off to hit a few hundred yards away. Cross hairs on your forehead evidently were the sort of "message" that's hard to misinterpret, and did what vanishing red lines don't.

As an irrelevant aside, an A-7 targeting the airfield on that mission experienced a weapons system failure at low altitude, and the pilot hit the manual jettison switch releasing his entire load, pylons and all. The result was that 16,000 lbs of iron bombs skipped down a taxiway and into the warehouse containing all of Libya's aircraft spares.
 

Howard Jones

Supporter
Jim, Here's what I am saying. If you are going to threaten someone you get your ducks all lined up first and then you follow through immediately. No further warning, no bull shit. In this case I would have done the following as it became clear that Syria was sliding into a internal civil war and that chemical weapons and their security were in danger of becoming uncertain. This was months ago.

First I would have consulted with congress and reached an agreement as to the scope of US involvement in Syria. My request would have been solely to protect US interest and those of our allies with as little involvement as possible. Then I would have commutated with the American people fully about the danger of WMD"s (in this case chemical weapons) and their use the hands of irresponsible parties including terror organizations aligned with the Syrian government and others fighting the Syrian government that are equally dangerous. Then discussed the possible involvement of our allies and other responsible governments (Russian and China in particular) in an attempt to elicit their support with the transfer of the WMD's. Now I make the threat.

Then I would have made a primetime speech from the oval office and stated the following without follow up questions.

1. We are not interested in fixing your problem, therefor we will not intervene unless you attempt to use WMD's on our interests, allies, our us. If you do we will preempt you if possible on our own timeline. If you are able to do so without warning we will attack your military and destroy it, remove you and your government from power, hang all who we believe are responsible, and turn the country over to the UN to deal with.

2. If at anytime we believe you are about to loose control of your WMD's, provide them to anyone we believe is not in our interest, or attempt to hide their location from us we will preempt you as in #1 with up to the same consequences as we see fit.

3. Should you wish to turn over your WMD's to any UN security council member we will assist you in doing so. Once you have completed the transfer we will have no further interest in your internal affairs as long as they do not effect the interests of the US, our allies in the region or threaten their security.

4. As I make this announcement US forces are in place and prepared to carry out this policy on my orders. I have the consent of the US congress and the support of the American People.

Fade to American Flag, National Anthem as back ground music...........................
 
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Larry L.

Lifetime Supporter
'Far too straight forward, honest, direct and 'no nonsense', Howard!!! You have to KNOW that for those very reasons the world couldn't handle it! (Never mind the fact it's a darn good plan!)
 

Jim Craik

Lifetime Supporter
Howard,

I like the part about telling them we dont care about their problems. In fact, i like most of what you say, except............

It sounds like you are telling despots the world over that as long as you dont use your chemical weapons on us we won't step in.

After 95 years and hundreds of wars, that's quite a legacy!

Death is blowing in the WIND.

Now thats something you could be very proud of. We could call it the President Jones slaughter loophole.
 
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Jim Craik

Lifetime Supporter
No Al, the World is responsible for the World.

As we are part of that World.................

We are by far the weathiest country, our GDP is more than double the next largest economy. We have chosen on our own to have a larger military budget than something like the next 10 countries combined!

We have chosen on our own to have military bases the world over.

We have chosen on our own to have a Navy not to protect our shores but to project power the world over! You dont protect California with Fleet Carriers, in the Indian Ocean do you?

Al you can't have it both ways, you want to project power the world over, you become responsible for much of what goes on.

With great power comes not only a massive economy, but yes, with it comes great responsibility.

Decideing one day that we will look the other way if you use WMDs because we just don't care anymore, deciding one day that all this responsibility is just too much work.............

Quite a legacy President Howard..........

Time to wash up, Howie, you've got blood on your hands.
 
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Jim-
I agree that projection of power is one of the purposes of any military. But projection is a catch-all word, and was more meaningful in the 19th century when gunboat diplomacy worked. Proportional Response is another one of those terms thrown about, but WW I began with a limited response when Austria drew a red line of sorts. Tonkin Gulf was the excuse for another proportional response, and we all know how that worked out in spite of our ability to project our power. The purpose of any military is to kill people and break things, and if you're not willing to do that until you've gained your ends, don't threaten to use it. I'm not advocating something like a nuclear response to every act of belligerency, but Napoleon told one of his generals who was over-cautious,"If you're going to take Vienna, take Vienna!" That's still pretty good advice.
The limited response to a bee sting of poking the hive with a stick and saying, "So there!" is not projection of power. And I don't think we have either the means or will to do what it would take to end the slaughter in Syria for more than a few weeks. What's worse, we don't even know which faction to back, and choosing one over another is like picking your favorite drug cartel.
Mr. Obama isn't the wisest man in the room, and when no other country in the world thinks it's worth the lives of their soldiers to intervene, I think he ought to listen to his betters.
 

Jim Craik

Lifetime Supporter
John,

Yes, projection of power can be a catch all word that could describe 19 Century power.

Today, this is what "Projection of Power" looks like! We are talking about real power! Power that any 19 Century leader could only dream about.

These are all places where we have US military based, remember thats just on land, we also have hundreds of ships with thousands of planes, spread around the world.

Talk about PROJECTION................


This is a few years old, but you get the idea.
 
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