The Glade 4.0

It's a cruise missile strike, not an invasion. That's a big difference. Clinton did the same thing, and it was a pretty big deal when he ended up blowing up a medicine factory by mistake.

Both Obama and Biden had issues with "military action", not invasion:
HuffPo
One thing is clear: As members of Congress, both Obama and Joe Biden would certainly have demanded an opportunity to debate any military action ahead of a decision.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

We are blowing things up in another country under no authority except 'MURRICA! Like in libya, we want to rig the outcome of a nations internal issue. And attempt to have our chosen winners of the "civil war" beholden to us for some unknown reasons.

More people die in Illinois than in Afghanistan. Why doesnt China occupy illinois to stop the deaths? Maybe russian drone strikes on gang strongholds to stop them?

If its not acceptable for a country to do it to the US, then its not acceptable for the US to do.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

A) We're not blowing anything at all up yet
B) We don't need any authorization.


How do you think China would go about doing that exactly, and why would it benefit them? (Assuming your numbers are even accurate, are you including traffic deaths or some nonsense?) In our case, Syria is a major oil pipeline conduit. Not getting those pipeline nodes blown up in a civil war is good for us because it keeps oil prices from shooting up.



It's acceptable if we decide it's acceptable. If other countries want to try the same thing on us, they can try and suffer the consequences. It's about what we determine to be in our interests based on cost-benefit analysis.

Note that this isn't to say that a missile strike, nor talking about redlines is or was necessarily a good idea, but this idea that "treat others how you want to be treated" is viable policy is silly and simplistic. Biden's hypocrisy is unexpected; both sides of the argument are blatant territory-protection by the side engaging in it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

So for those of you who've been keeping up more, I'd appreciate some commentary on the larger effects.

My brief reading indicates that Russia and China are both against the bombing, and have walked away from the UN security council. Similarly, Russia seems to be backing Assad, which indicates bombing would set us in direct opposition.

There's also the threat of the Syrian regime to respond to a US attack by attacking Israel, to which Israel would respond, likely pulling the region into a conflict, with the US, China and Russia possibly getting involved in some sense.

How accurate is my read on the situation?

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

If unexpected means that it is just the kind of thing you would expect any politician to do because they are all lying bastards and *****, then I wholeheartedly agree.

You know because infamous is More than Famous...

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

No, just a typo on my part.

Obama still hasn't made a decision, which is good in this case. We don't need to rush. It appears to me that the British backing off on pushing for a strike may have slowed him down.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Prime Minister David Cameron:



+1

+1 for Cameron. Now if only our president would listen to his people.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I tend to agree.

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In time, this too shall pass.

DE, so again the reasons are cause 'MURRICA STRONG and we like cheap oil? Wtf man maybe youre eager to go back to a sandy country but I did my time and id hate to lose more friends to blatent bs.

We are screwing with a sovereign country. We are giving the next generation of suicide bombers and terrorists all the moral justification they need. If the US is trying to take a Machevellian approach to foreign policy then we are failing at that as well.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Where did I at any point say that I'm interested in getting involved there? Did you **** read my posts? Obviously not, so shut the **** up. Rephrasing things with "MURRICA STRONG" and just calling things "blatant BS" aren't an argument and demonstrate a juvenile level of understanding of national security and international relations. The only "blatant BS" that's been going on for the last 12 years is the constant screeching

Don't even bring up losing friends, by the way. Do you think you're the only one who knows people who died? I can think of a dozen off the top of my head, of various degrees of acquaintence. Every one of them volunteered, just like I did. I happened to be lucky. I'm sorry I had better luck that some other people, but I wasn't given any say in the matter. Don't give me any of your self-righteous bullshit.



"Screwing with a sovereign country" is irrelevant. Countries are only sovereign to the degree other countries decide they are. There is no such thing as a legal or illegal war; international law is nothing more than a political toolset used to gain advantage on the international stage. As for creating suicide bombers and moral justification, no, we aren't. If you seriously think that punishing Assad for gassing his own citizens gives moral justification to suicide bombings aimed at who-knows-what, then take your own sorry *** over there and live. This is just about you not liking it, and trying to think up some reason not to do it. You sure as **** don't understand how the culture works, and what actually invites aggression. Creating the kid that wears the vest isn't the problem; its how we're perceived by the people that tell that kid where to blow himself that matters.

Like I said earlier, I would have preferred that Obama keep his stupid trap shut about "Red lines" and allow us to just remain silent on the whole issue. He didn't do that, so now we're in between a rock and a hard place. Had you actually read, instead of relying solely on your own outrage and pointless sarcasm you'd have known that, but since you think "MURRICA STRONG" is actually an argument, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You're a perfect example of why public opinion should be ignored in making these decisions.

Oh, one more thing: If we do end up going in there on the ground (which I don't expect, and don't hope for) I fully expect to get mobilized for it, and since I'm a commander, I have to take my unit to war and be responsible for all of their safety. Will you be mobilizing? Going to get to spend a year away from your family? How many people will you be responsible for? I know every one of them, I know what these guys are like, I've met most of their wives and kids. Don't **** tell me about being eager to go back to sandy land. You don't have a **** clue about that.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

http://www.examiner.com/article/breakin ... al-weapons

Well, if true, that makes a lot of things easier, and a few things more difficult.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

It's irrelevant at this point - the entire world sees this as "Obama blinked".

The damage is done, piss-ants will believe they can get away with anything now.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ck-us.html

So, if Assad now feels emboldened and kills more rebels using WMDs, I'd ague that those death should be laid at the feet of the Commander in Chief of the most powerful nation in the world, for letting him think he can get away with it without consequences.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Yes, and unfortunately (in view of what Taskiss pointed out just below you) that may largely be ignored in favor of simply painting it as "Obama blinked". It may turn out to be a good thing he blinked, as (if it turns out to be true that the rebels acquired chemical weapons from the Saudis) that this was an attempt to lure us into removing Assad, or an attempt to frame us and the British and French by getting us to strike, then revealing it was really the rebels with the chemicals.

Assad may also now be able to get away with using chemicals, since any future deployments could be screened with finger-pointing at the rebels.

On the plus side, the Russians and the Chinese will now have a very hard time of accusing us of rushing into anything. It may seem like a case of "haha, we were right and you Americans and British were wrong", but it also puts a little egg on their face of screaming about action we ultimately didn't end up taking (and hopefully, that won't be taken now just to save face, which it wouldn't do at this point).

Yet more evidence that Obama should have taken a golden opportunity to keep his mouth shut in the first place.

It demonstrates the silliness of the "creating more terrorists" argument, however, that the Saudis have been anti-Assad the entire time and appear to be the ones trying to get us to attack him, and that we'll look weak for not doing so after saying we would. Contrary to popular belief, Arabs and Muslims are not homogenous and any involvement doesn't unite them all against us. No matter what we do, there will always be more terrorists. Someone will always be offended that we have the gall to exist.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I'm somewhat skeptical of this article. Nothing's sourced, and it's not being picked up anywhere else.

Plus the unlikelyhood of the Saudis exposing themselves in that way. A few days ago, I expected this to be rapidly picked up but the fact that it hasn't makes it.. questionable.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Caveat posted now at the link to the story...The principal credited journalist wasn't even in Syria -



Yahya Ababneh is being identified as a journalist but I'm not able to find anything about him where it's said his stories appeared, but there is my requirement to use google translate to read anything from those sites ... still, I would think I could come up with something were he a reputable journalist. YMMV




http://www.mintpressnews.com/witnesses- ... ns/168135/

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In time, this too shall pass.

Someone is pulling a fast one here somewhere, but I'm really not sure who.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No, those deaths should be laid at the feet of the person that actually caused them.

Its not the US's fault that the Syrian head of state is a murdering whackjob. Maybe let the rest of the world do the policing, since they seem to have a hard on for us when we do it.

And when we don't do it apparently...

I'd prefer to err on the side that doesn't cost our country a shitton of money, and eventually, American lives.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Taskiss how much history do you need before you understand that trying to be the strongman police of the world is a losing idea in all regards?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I'm a romantic. I think those that are stronger are obligated to protect those that are weaker.

The only way to lose is to let your convictions be compromised.

Then too, I think the limit of our assistance should be to arm the rebels with low level munitions and provide air support.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Folks on this board take great exception to this idea.

Yes. Feudalism is (allegedly) over.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

What history are you referring to? Our "strongman police of the world" efforts over the years have yielded both success and failures as well as quite a few mixed-bag results. There's no credible case I can see for claiming that it's a losing idea "in all regards".