The Syrian Situation

[DareDemon]

Well in fairness neither can children.

Assad needs to be taken out. I dunno if the west will intervene or not, and I'm not sure if we necessarily should, but at the end of the day freedom needs to win and Assad needs to lose.

 

[Alex_Spider]

To anyone who feels that the sight of all those mutilated dead children doesn't shake the very fiber of their being - imagine your own innocent child or younger sibling amongst those piles of deformed corpses, and you'll have just found your worst fear. It is exactly this kind of apathy on our part that makes these tyrants and butchers think they can get away with heinous massacres like this.

I was honestly more fascinated than appalled at that video. I deal with death and dead things fairly often, but it's rare to see something like that.

The reason it doesn't "shake the very fiber of (my) being" or however you want to try and paint that is that I'm able to compartmentalize those sorts of things and put them in perspective. Yes, if those were my kids/younger siblings/etc. I'd feel horror and outrage and all that, but they're not, and I know they're not. Emotions are valuable, and you'll never hear me claim otherwise, but giving a kneejerk anger response to this (something I can't actually do something about) is not only pointless, but ultimately frustrating.

Don't go around painting people as bad just because you personalize things a bit too much.

So a guy claims that he feels nothing when innocent children and men die in horrible ways, but gets easily frustrated and offended for all the wrong reasons and because his self pride is hurt. Humanity makes me proud once again..

 

[Alex_Spider]

edit

 

[regwec]

Syrian rebel commander eats enemy soldier's heart.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22519770

Not pleasant and, sadly, a propaganda tool for Assad.

 

[Cosmic]

Syria is a quagmire. We will gain NOTHING from "intervention," (a term used far too lightly for what it actually entails) but we will surely risk making a bad situation worse. We should support our allies over there, but we should avoid getting actively involved in the war.

 

[Marx]

POLL: AMERICANS MORE AND MORE WORRIED ABOUT SYRIAN CIVIL WAR
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/27/poll-worries-about-syrian-civil-war-on-the-rise/

 

[Webfoot Hero]

McCain visits rebels in Syria

Stupid move by McCain. No way should the US get involved, considering the rebels are a hodgepodge group that would likely form a Islamist-based government that would eventually be hostile to the US. Let the Syrians settle it themselves.

 

[Cosmic]

McCain visits rebels in Syria

Stupid move by McCain. No way should the US get involved, considering the rebels are a hodgepodge group that would likely form a Islamist-based government that would eventually be hostile to the US. Let the Syrians settle it themselves.

He leaped into this pile of dung long ago, clearly without doing anything more than superficial research. He's all-in, with no cards. He seems like a decent man, but his crisis-response reflex is critically flawed.

Long an advocate of a more pronounced American effort in Syria, McCain has previously visited camps in Jordan that have harbored massive waves of Syrian refugees. He described one of those camps last month on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"This woman who was a schoolteacher said, 'Sen. McCain, do you see these children here? They're going to take revenge on those people who refused to help them,' " McCain recalled. "They're angry and bitter. And that legacy could last for a long time too, unless we assist them."

This was probably not the best anecdote to use. Then again, he probably doesn't have much of anything else to present a viable argument with.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Do nothing. Great idea. Just sit back and watch the bloodbath continue endlessly. Worked great in Somalia.

 

[Alex_Spider]

Do nothing. Great idea. Just sit back and watch the bloodbath continue endlessly. Worked great in Somalia.

Kinda weird uh? Choosing to bring "Democracy" in foreign lands like Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, but not in other places like Syria, Somalia etc.
Seems to me that there is no geopolitical interest or resource profit for the US to aid those countries. But then it could be the fact that with an ongoing war in Iraq it would be financially impossible to engage in a new war.

 

[regwec]

I think it is a matter of Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrating that these interventions are extremely difficult and may well do more harm than good. After ten years, it is far from clear what fate awaits Iraq. Tunisia, Libya and Egypt were better off for the US and its allies staying out. No doubt the prevailing wisdom is that Syria is a similar situation. The question, I think, is how much blood is too much before the West are compelled to intervene. Arming the rebels seems like a sensible compromise, but it is difficult to be sure that we are not arming the next Taliban.

 

[regwec]

Russia is sending missiles to Assad's regime, to 'dissuade' foreign aggression.

Cold War II.

 

[Alex_Spider]

Russia is playing a dirty game by supporting the butcher Assad to maintain his power and murder more innocent people. The Russian government is as guilty as that psychopath Assad. Pitty for the syrian rebels I don't see them wining anytime soon.

 

[Kelly]

Well, this is one of those things, that yes, the world would be/and would have been a better place without the Assad family, but once they are out.....who is in? A major question we have to answer.

 

[Thundercrack85]

If the world sits back and does nothing someone worse than Assad could easily come to power. Or Assad could remain in power, after having murdered a hundred thousand of his own citizens.

Arming the rebels is a half-assed measure. This situation needs a Libya-style international action. Assad needs to be arrested and brought to justice.

But instead we're just sitting on the sidelines trying to come up with excuses for why we're not doing what we all know needs to be done.

 

[Kelly]

They/We could do pretty much what we did in Iraq back Desert Storm. Destroy his strongholds, ammunition, send him and his family on the run without sitting foot in the country.

The problem with that is.....I have a feeling that something even worse than the "Muslim Brotherhood" in Egypt would end up in power.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Some would argue that's happening right now.

 

[Kelly]

Well, some would argue we had boots on the ground in Libya as we were talking only about a "no fly zone". : )

 

[Baramos]

If the world sits back and does nothing someone worse than Assad could easily come to power. Or Assad could remain in power, after having murdered a hundred thousand of his own citizens.

Arming the rebels is a half-assed measure. This situation needs a Libya-style international action. Assad needs to be arrested and brought to justice.

But instead we're just sitting on the sidelines trying to come up with excuses for why we're not doing what we all know needs to be done.

Part of it is politics. Many Republicans (though notably, not John McCain) were vocally critical of the no-fly zone in Libya because Obama was for it. Now the administration has put off aiding the Syrian people, so it's time for Republicans to be all for it. And so it goes...

EDIT: Edited to say "Many Republicans" because I think it was a bloc of senators headed by Rand Paul, who is fairly different from many other GOPers.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Of course it is, and the only reason we went into Libya is because Europe gets a good chunk of its oil from there.

 

[regwec]

The intervention in Libya was fairly minimal, which was the wiser course to choose. We don't want rebel groups to be domestically tainted by association with the US or the West, should they succeed. It is about doing the bare minimum to ensure that the 'right' side wins.

I doubt the US or its allies will have much to do with Syria, because Russia has rattled its saber, and the West largely marches to the tune of its former Cold War adversaries.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I don't think Gaddafi or his followers would agree with your analysis on Libya. If we (by which I mean America and Europe) had done nothing, he might well still be in power. Western forces decimated entire armies and bases.

And on the contrary, doing the bare minimum means any side can win. But most likely it won't be the people who are pro-West, since the West has done nothing but sit back and watch the bloodshed.

 

[regwec]

By 'doing the bare minimum to ensure the right side wins', I mean doing the minimum required to produce that outcome. I think this was the policy pursued in Libya and Egypt; in the best circumstances, it leads to no direct intervention at all. It was not the policy pursued in Afghanistan or Iraq- consequently those campaigns are still ongoing, having lurched from disaster to disaster.

 

[Webfoot Hero]

By 'doing the bare minimum to ensure the right side wins', I mean doing the minimum required to produce that outcome. I think this was the policy pursued in Libya and Egypt; in the best circumstances, it leads to no direct intervention at all. It was not the policy pursued in Afghanistan or Iraq- consequently those campaigns are still ongoing, having lurched from disaster to disaster.

And why should the US get involved in another conflict? There are enough other countries in the area who could easily get together a coalition and take out Assad's regime. The only reason others, especially the Europeans, want the US involved is it takes the heat off them and they want our military resources that they have cut drastically due to them using us as the world's police for so long (some of which is our fault for allowing to happen.)

 

[regwec]

I'm not sure 'the Europeans' want the US involved at all. France and Germany generally want the US well out of the Mediterranean, and would like nothing more than for the US to withdraw and quietly decline. Britain is broadly pro-American and generally more hawkish, but can't go it alone. In any case, I don't think anyone, the US included, has the guts to intervene in Syria if it enjoys direct Russian backing. Turkey might conceivably deploy its army, but it is likely to be a defensive gesture.