US Forces Ready To Strike Syria If Ordered 918
An anonymous reader writes "The Associated Press reports that 'U.S. forces are now ready to act on any order by President Barack Obama to strike Syria, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday. The U.S. Navy has four destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea positioned within range of targets inside Syria, as well as U.S. warplanes in the region, Hagel said in an interview with BBC television during his visit to the southeast Asian nation of Brunei. Hagel also predicted that U.S. intelligence agencies would soon conclude that last week's deadly attack on civilians in a Damascus suburb was a chemical attack by Bashar Assad's government.'" The New York Times has an informative map of the sites of the chemical attacks.
Yay! Wag the dog! (Score:5, Interesting)
NSA what? I'm sorry I can't hear you over all this FREEDOM.
Re:Tell me again (Score:5, Interesting)
why we keep spending money interfering with civil wars 1/2 way around the world??
War is Peace.
It's all explained in the novel "1984".
Re:Great (Score:4, Interesting)
Here we go again...
This has been going on for decades in this part of the world. "The only winning move is not to play."
Tell me again why we should care about the use of chemical weapons in Syria? I don't see a reason to intervene.
So seeing pictures of 100s of dead children being gassed by a chemical attack doesn't do anything for you?
Re:Here we go... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Fuck off (Score:3, Interesting)
Fuck you and anyone who claims that the situation in Syria is an excuse to "cover up" the HEAVILY COVERED NSA issues. Fuck you, seriously. Because nothing bad happens in the world except things the US causes, right? Fuck. You.
Fuck. Me?
Nah man. Fuck. You. And. Your. Half-Assed. Straw Man. And. Your. Naive. Jingoistic. View. Of. The. World.
Re:Here we go... (Score:2, Interesting)
we will be damned for isolationism and disregard for human suffering if we do not act
Yes, it is too bad we were ordained by God to police the world. It would be so much better if there was some sort of organization that could represent the collective will of the nations of the world in situations like this. Maybe we could set up something like that. New York City might be a good place.
Devil's advocate
What if the US just did nothing?
I previously opposed any intervention PERIOD! Reason, being who is the opposition? Each time we get involved to stop the spread of evil communism like in Iran or the Iraq the situation always becomes worse and we are the bad guys.
But anyone reading with any sense of humanity has to have some sort of emotional response to this? [youtube.com]
Obama's argument is yes we do not know who the opposition will be (there are 2 parties in involved) and who will be there. However, if we don't get involved Al Quada will make up the opposition and form another Afghanistan. The Syrian government is only targeting liberal activitists and citizens defending themselves and ignoring the Islamic militants from foreign countries fighting in Jihad on purpose.
If this war continues there will be too sides. One is Al Quada. The other is this monster who is Shia who gasses his own people! Worse, this violence is spreading in Iraq and Lebanon and is involving Iran and Saudi Arabia.
This could very easily turn into another World War I based on Shia and Sunni lines.
If we do get involved and play our cards right we stop Al Quada, and help the liberal and citizen oriented people wanting freedom, stop the killing dictator, and hopefully Lebanon and Iraq stabilize and we stop Hezbollah who is not fighting onside and we stop the 7 million refugees who left who are draining neighboring countries.
The question is what will happen if we do and will it make the situation worse and actually start another WW1 with a Muslim holy war between the 2 sides? Or will it prevent it. Not to sound like an American Idiot here, but I was there right at the base of the WTC on that fatefully day 9-11. We can't have any nation as a safe haven for such groups.
Re:Tell me again (Score:1, Interesting)
Haha, you really think religion is the sole cause of all war?
That's so cute and naive.
Re:I'm usually against military action. (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally I do not believe Assad used chemical weapons, and this looks like a charade pulled off to start a war.
The rebels have degenerated as they were infiltrated from so many radical groups with different agendas. At this point, if they win they will be just as bad as Assad, only less predictable. Who is the US intending to install in Syria? How are they going to control the nation? Has anyone learnt anything at all from Iraq?
Re:Tell me again (Score:3, Interesting)
why we keep spending money interfering with civil wars 1/2 way around the world??
Watch this [youtube.com] and tell me if you still think this?
What if we did not? Do you have any idea what Syria is doing? They are targeting just the civilian and liberal elements of the opposition and purposely ignoring the Islamic militants who are jihading and sadly they are winning.
This means by next year we have the Taliban vs the dictator left and is a lose lose situation at this point. So the argument is if we get involved and stop Asad from murdering his own people and influencing the opposition we can have a pro western and stable democracy similar to Libya now which is the most liberal country int he middle east.
The question is will this happen? Or will we be aiding Al Quada militants and forming more hatred and another 9-11 attack in which we seek to avoid? We thought we did a great thing for the Iraqis and Iranians too in the old days. Boy, did that backfire!
I do not know what at this point? That video link really has influenced me in wanting to do something though.
Re:Here we go... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is a question: What the hell is going on in Syria? So far as I can see it is one group of idiots who are being destructive and killing innocent people attacking another group of stupid idiots who are also being destructive and killing innocent people, with a whole bunch of people who have no voice at all caught in the middle not knowing what the hell is going on and just trying to get out of the way.
There is no "righteous side" in this conflict, and indeed I see the current role of the U.S. government in this whole mess as just being a catalyst to cause even more death and destruction by supplying arms and "training" to various people on both sides of the conflict. Yes, both sides are getting these arms and training. Russia is doing the same damn thing as are other military powers.
Heck, this whole mess could even be considered a clean-up operation from World War I where the French failed to be responsible for their jurisdiction over Syria when it was their colony. At least if you want to get into historic roles, nearly every former French colony is quite screwed up, so why should Syria be any different?
I certainly don't see any reason for America or anybody else for that matter to go to war over this mess. There certainly is no reason to even seek UN approval for going there either, of course why does anybody need "UN approval" for going to war in the first place?
Re:Here we go... (Score:5, Interesting)
The US government doesn't even want to do this, they would much rather do nothing right now.
But, a little more than a year ago Obama made a calculated bluff to discourage the Syrian government from using chemical weapons. Unfortunately they called that bluff shortly afterwards, but the US government tried to ignore it. Recently, the Syrian government made a mockery of that bluff, and now the US government has to take action to maintain credibility. This is for maintaining credibility, and since they have to blow some stuff up in the process, crippling the Assad regime's capability of using chemical weapons, conveniently eliminating the only thing that could draw them into this conflict again. Nothing more.
I predict that when this is over (which will be soon) the US government will keep very, very quiet about Syria.
Re:Here we go... (Score:5, Interesting)
But they are world affairs. You try making an oil pipe-line from the heart of the middle east to China without going through Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan. Now make one that goes to Europe through Turkey and see how important Syria and/or Iraq are. Iraq and Syria are key to blocking the oil from both Russia and China and forcing it to continue being shipped out via the maritime route, like it has been all along, or by pipeline to Europe. And if you have the biggest navy in the world (ie, the US), then you control maritime shipping and you can cut Russia and China off whenever you want. That's one hell of a bargaining chip.
Of course Russia has newly discovered vast oil reserves, massive natural gas reserves, and also a willing buyer right in the form of China right on its border. So nothing can be done about that. They can build other pipelines elsewhere. But at the rate China is growing, it's going to need far more than just Russian oil. It's going to soon need ALL the oil. And what's more, unlike the US, it can afford to pay. It has cheap labor and isn't hindered by countless anti-business or protectionist laws and unions that are the reason manufacturing fled the West in the first place. This has the US and its allies running scared and is driving their foreign policy - from the recent Georgian/Russian war, a complete failure for the US who was covertly backing Georgia, to setting the entire middle east on fire except, conveniently, Saudi Arabia and the small states near the entrance to the Persian Gulf.
Don't think for one minute that this "arab spring" is a spontaneous event. Remember that in politics absolutely nothing happens by "chance". Nothing. This is not about Saddam. Assad. Khaddafi. Mubarak. They are irrelevant. It's about controlling the direction of the flow of oil, and making it harder for "the other guy" to get at it unless he plays ball with you on your terms.
Re:Bad Idea #1 (Score:4, Interesting)
Rubbish! (Score:5, Interesting)
While we members of the UN, the UN has given no authority to bomb anyone. Not that we need the precedent with a misinformed public mind you, the UN never approved us bombing Iraq either (Gulf 2).
Let's look at a few facts regarding Syria.
1. Last September Obama claimed there was a line in the sand of chemical weapons use.
2. December, FSA rebels posted Youtube videos of home made chemical agents killing rabbits.
3. December, German hacker broke into a UK military contractors email and found messages stating roughly the US and UK are paying enormous funds for us to sneak CWs into Syria, use a CW shell from Libya of Russian make similar to what Assad would have, and blow it up. Experts have determined that the emails look to be legit.
4. February chemical weapons were claimed to be used. The UN determined in March that it was the FSA using these weapons. Interestingly, the US claims contrary to the UN without evidence. Of course the war drum banging was minimized by media, perhaps too close to the emails suggesting false flag?
5. March, Military.com reported that FSA rebels were caught attempting to transport chemical weapons through the Turkish border into Syria.
6. March, FSA rebels kidnap 21 UN peace keepers. (more recently 5 more were kidnapped)
Now lets jump to last week.
8/20 videos start being uploaded to Youtube showing victims of CWs. Date stamps put many of these videos ahead of the reported attack by at least 12 hours.
Propaganda, er... US Media immediately bangs the war drum again and claims it must have been Assad (Who invited the UN inspectors in.).
You should be questioning why we are going in a circle. It's not like you were told the truth about Iraq's WMDs and look how well that war worked out. No, I'm not pro dictatorships. I'm anti-imperialism and anti-propaganda, especially when it harms a majority while a select few gain incredible wealth off of wars.
Patriotism is fine when it's not blind. Blind patriotism leads to Stalin, Mao, Lenin, Adolf, etc...
Re:Here we go... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hardly. We have a lot more options than just (invade | do-not-invade). We can help the refugees for one.
Right now this smacks too much of "wag the dog". A nice war against a "bad man" so that everyone can forget the NSA leaks. And a big party when we kill the "bad man".
The problem with that is that it is just as easy to kill thousands of people with regular bullets and bombs as it is with chemical weapons.
From a military standpoint, chemical weapons are used for two main reasons:
1. To deny terrain to the enemy.
2. To "soften" a "hardened" target. That's where the enemy is dug in so much that regular bullets and bombs are not effective.
That is not saying that chemical weapons cannot be used on a civilian town. Just that using them is no more effective than artillery or bombs or sending a infantry company in.
And that gets back to it being just as easy to kill people with bombs and bullets as it is with chemical weapons.
Why do we care so much that it is *CHEMICAL WEAPONS* as opposed to *BULLETS*?
Why would we not want to get involved if 10,000 people are killed by bullets? But 100 people killed by nerve agent and we're in an uproar?
I guarantee that we will kill/cripple more civilians in a war than they have killed/crippled with chemicals.