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Questions on the forthcoming Syria strike.
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By Odin.Zicdeh 2013-09-03 19:37:50
If Russia's an ally, I'd hate to see what we consider an enemy. Lakshmi.Sparthosx said: »What's the point of launching attacks proclaimed by the administration as being intentionally ineffective? Warning shots to a dictator who is committed fully to keeping power in his country by any means necessary is fruitless if you've already ruled out putting infantry on the ground or a no-fly zone.
The threat of force by launching an across the bow attack implies greater force if you continue down the chemical weapons path. Are we committed to backing that threat up? Nope.
Parading dead babies around as justification for firing missiles that will be aimed at installations that won't alter the course of the war and at the same time calling this a crime against humanity is simply posturing.
This is really the core of the issue. It's not even a shot across Assad's bow, it's a big middle finger to Russia... WHO ARE OUR ALLIES. This isn't the cold war era, there is no threat of mutual destruction. The correct approach is to be publicly condemning of Syria's (alleged) attacks on civilians, but let the UN do it's job.
The MAD policy is still in effect, America and Russia still have the vast majority of their ICBM arsenals on alert against each other.
VIP
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By Odin.Jassik 2013-09-03 19:38:57
Who else would they be pointed at? Is anyone else capable of actually committing Nuclear ICBMs on US targets?
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By Odin.Zicdeh 2013-09-03 19:45:14
Who else would they be pointed at? Is anyone else capable of actually committing Nuclear ICBMs on US targets?
I bet England is still stewin' over their losses in 1783 and 1815, and they've got a whole mess of nukes on their Submarines.
 Cerberus.Eugene
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By Cerberus.Eugene 2013-09-03 19:53:22
Who else would they be pointed at? Is anyone else capable of actually committing Nuclear ICBMs on US targets? not without mad.
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By Fenrir.Lilcratis 2013-09-03 19:55:35
going to war with 11% support of the american people and almost no support from other countries...hopefully this war won't cost more than a few trillion dollars
By Oceanfury 2013-09-03 21:15:44
Democrats before the Iraq war:
YouTube Video Placeholder
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By Shiva.Viciousss 2013-09-03 21:19:00
who cares?
 Ragnarok.Harpunnik
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By Ragnarok.Harpunnik 2013-09-03 21:36:19
So let me get this straight...
We are so concerned over what happened in Syria that we just had to wait a few days for Congress to get back in session...I mean we are so concerned people are dying...but naw, we don't want to cut anyone's vacation short.
John McCain is so concerned about whats going on, he's playing poker on his phone during the hearings.
Meanwhile in Syria, important stuff is being hidden and stockpiled in residential areas. Going to be great PR on the news when we hit some apartment and kill civilians.
This is a classic case of someone making a threat, the bluff called, and now people have put themselves in a position that they are willing to blow stuff up just to save political face.
Thats fine, I'm sure this will be solely blamed on the Tea Party or something.
VIP
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By Odin.Jassik 2013-09-03 21:48:37
Ragnarok.Harpunnik said: »Thats fine, I'm sure this will be solely blamed on the Tea Party or something.
I'm all for calling the Tea Party out on their crap, but even the most loyal of the democrat's voting base are pretty pissed at Obama.
By Enuyasha 2013-09-03 21:53:23
Ragnarok.Harpunnik said: »So let me get this straight...
We are so concerned over what happened in Syria that we just had to wait a few days for Congress to get back in session...I mean we are so concerned people are dying...but naw, we don't want to cut anyone's vacation short.
John McCain is so concerned about whats going on, he's playing poker on his phone during the hearings.
Meanwhile in Syria, important stuff is being hidden and stockpiled in residential areas. Going to be great PR on the news when we hit some apartment and kill civilians.
This is a classic case of someone making a threat, the bluff called, and now people have put themselves in a position that they are willing to blow stuff up just to save political face.
Thats fine, I'm sure this will be solely blamed on the Tea Party or something. And to imagine we wouldnt even be thinking about going in if Sadam Assad hadnt gassed the Kurds Syrian rebels.
Collateral damage will happen either way (it has already, but not the point) and if the enemy is using targets that are socially unacceptable to attack then there is really no way to avoid killing innocents unless you send people into those areas, and we dont want to do that because thats more losses we simply cant have. You arent dealing with people that will lay their munitions out in the open for you to elaborately destroy and foil their plots for world domination, you are dealing with people that will do anything to get what they want in the end and they are not afraid to make you look like a monster while they are sacrificing little babehs to Satan. You cant play partisan stratego with this type of situation, its literally unavoidable whether you are Republican,Democrat, or one of those other shades on the color wheel.
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By Phoenix.Amandarius 2013-09-03 22:01:25
Which means there is absolutely zero upside to striking Syria besides Obama saving face for a couple days, til the ***hits the fan.
By Enuyasha 2013-09-03 22:04:29
Phoenix.Amandarius said: »Which means there is absolutely zero upside to striking Syria besides Obama saving face for a couple days, til the ***hits the fan. Well, that and Assad (supposedly) used chemical weapons.
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By Asura.Kingnobody 2013-09-04 07:15:16
Phoenix.Amandarius said: »Which means there is absolutely zero upside to striking Syria besides Obama saving face for a couple days, til the ***hits the fan. Well, that and Assad (supposedly) used chemical weapons. What, we went from absolutely knowing that he used chemical weapons to supposedly?
I thought you liberals always trust the government, except when a Republican is the president.
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Siren.Flavin
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By Siren.Flavin 2013-09-04 08:30:17
Phoenix.Amandarius said: »Which means there is absolutely zero upside to striking Syria besides Obama saving face for a couple days, til the ***hits the fan. Well, that and Assad (supposedly) used chemical weapons. What, we went from absolutely knowing that he used chemical weapons to supposedly? I thought you liberals always trust the government, except when a Republican is the president. If a republican president were in place right now doing the same things would you be blatantly pounding him as you do Obama?
Fenrir.Camiie
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By Fenrir.Camiie 2013-09-04 08:57:43
1, Do you think it will happen?
If it's what Barry really wants then his party will hand it to him and he'll be shielded from any real responsibility in the matter. Yay politics... And yes the other side would do the same for their guy as well.
Quote: 2, What do you think we will target?
It doesn't matter because by hook or by crook they'll have images of dead women and children ready for Al Jazeera to broadcast to the world as "proof" of the west's barbarism.
Quote: 3, What are the odds that Hamas and Al Qaeda backed rebel groups will "accidentally" be hit by "friendly fire"? (And due to our links with the more moderate rebel groups we should have good intel on these.)
What are the odds that Al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood groups are the ones who've been gassing people and blaming it on Assad? Not that I'd be surprised if he had done it himself, but it wouldn't shock me if they had either.
Quote: 4, Will it make a difference? Long term, short term, to the conduct of the war, to the world wide TV audience? (I know it will make a difference to the bottom lines of many companies.)
There's not a thing we can do to change the minds of people who loathe us. Any action or inaction on our part will be propagandized into a negative so the best thing to do is act purely in our own best interests. In this case our best interest is to keep our forces and fortunes at home and let Allah sort things out over there. I know that may seem heartless to some, but I consider it more heartless to send our own people into harms way with no real goal and nothing to gain for the country they've pledged to serve.
By AnnaMolly 2013-09-04 09:00:55
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By Lakshmi.Sparthosx 2013-09-04 09:45:25
Phoenix.Amandarius said: »Which means there is absolutely zero upside to striking Syria besides Obama saving face for a couple days, til the ***hits the fan.
And Obama gave Congress the ability to cockblock him. If we do strike Syria it won't be Obamas fault unless he chooses to attack even with a no vote.
 Siren.Mosin
By Siren.Mosin 2013-09-04 10:04:21
I want a video of like a dubstep-ish song and bombs going off, then that clip off joe biden going "this is a big ***' deal" all scratched up like hip-hop stuff back in the 90's
thi-
thi-
this is a-
this is a-
erp
this is a big ***' deal
anyone with me here?
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Garuda.Chanti
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By Garuda.Chanti 2013-09-04 10:10:47
Ragnarok.Harpunnik said: »....
Thats fine, I'm sure this will be solely blamed on the Tea Party or something.
Actually a lot of the Tea Party are non interventionists.
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By Asura.Kingnobody 2013-09-04 10:35:05
Phoenix.Amandarius said: »Which means there is absolutely zero upside to striking Syria besides Obama saving face for a couple days, til the ***hits the fan. Well, that and Assad (supposedly) used chemical weapons. What, we went from absolutely knowing that he used chemical weapons to supposedly? I thought you liberals always trust the government, except when a Republican is the president. If a republican president were in place right now doing the same things would you be blatantly pounding him as you do Obama? If we had a republican president who is exactly like Obama, then yes.
If we had a real leader in the White House, we would have already done what said leader would have done. Either attack or not.
Not one who wants to shift blame from himself (since he opened his big mouth) to somebody else (which is what he is doing by "letting" Congress decide what to do).
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By Asura.Kingnobody 2013-09-04 10:36:40
Lakshmi.Sparthosx said: »Phoenix.Amandarius said: »Which means there is absolutely zero upside to striking Syria besides Obama saving face for a couple days, til the ***hits the fan.
And Obama gave Congress the ability to cockblock him. If we do strike Syria it won't be Obamas fault unless he chooses to attack even with a no vote. Which is Obama's plan all along.
Open big fatass mouth, make a fool of himself, then pushes responsibility to somebody else so he would just say "I let so-and-so decide for me, so it isn't my fault"
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By Lakshmi.Sparthosx 2013-09-04 10:38:21
You know as well as I this is a no win scenario for folks like yourself. If Obama had attacked, you'd call him a dictator and make a reference to Hugo Chavez and if he didn't attack you'd bring up Putin and getting bullied by Russia.
It's so much easier on us all if you just say you don't like Obama because he's Obama.
My opposition is to the strikes period, regardless of who' in the White House. They won't accomplish the objectives of removing Assad and we're not hopped up on enough freedom and democracy to invade Syria and Iran.
Get an international coalition to back strikes and I'd sit a bit easier but knowing it won't remove the man in charge or degrade his chemical weapons stockpiles leaves me feeling the action is symbolic rather than practical.
Siren.Mosin
By Siren.Mosin 2013-09-04 10:43:04
so no one's down with my biden music video I take it.
:(
Fenrir.Atheryn
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By Fenrir.Atheryn 2013-09-04 11:11:10
Asura.Melbufrauma said: »The reason this is such a big deal, is America has been saying Assads Regime has been using chemical weapons this whole time. But according to the U.Ns investigation the rebels (who the Americans have been arming) were the ones using chemical weapons.
This is the problem. We know that chemical weapons have been used, but so far, the global powers seem to think the rebels don't have the capability to launch a chemical weapon strike, therefore it must be the Syrian Government. They're not even waiting for the UN to confirm it either way because they're so certain of this. But hasn't it already been established that the rebels have the support of Al Qaeda? And how many times have we underestimated Al Qaeda's capabilities before? Given Al Qaeda's track record, the use of chemical weapons isn't exactly beneath them.
 Bahamut.Milamber
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By Bahamut.Milamber 2013-09-04 11:32:37
Asura.Melbufrauma said: »The reason this is such a big deal, is America has been saying Assads Regime has been using chemical weapons this whole time. But according to the U.Ns investigation the rebels (who the Americans have been arming) were the ones using chemical weapons.
This is the problem. We know that chemical weapons have been used, but so far, the global powers seem to think the rebels don't have the capability to launch a chemical weapon strike, therefore it must be the Syrian Government. They're not even waiting for the UN to confirm it either way because they're so certain of this. But hasn't it already been established that the rebels have the support of Al Qaeda? And how many times have we underestimated Al Qaeda's capabilities before? Given Al Qaeda's track record, the use of chemical weapons isn't exactly beneath them. The production and deployment isn't exactly anywhere close to rocket science either for either chemical or biological weapons. Which is one of the reasons to bring the hammer down hard on anyone which uses it; it is one of those items humanity at large *really* doesn't want to allow as an acceptable practice.
Fenrir.Atheryn
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By Fenrir.Atheryn 2013-09-04 11:40:05
Asura.Melbufrauma said: »The reason this is such a big deal, is America has been saying Assads Regime has been using chemical weapons this whole time. But according to the U.Ns investigation the rebels (who the Americans have been arming) were the ones using chemical weapons.
This is the problem. We know that chemical weapons have been used, but so far, the global powers seem to think the rebels don't have the capability to launch a chemical weapon strike, therefore it must be the Syrian Government. They're not even waiting for the UN to confirm it either way because they're so certain of this. But hasn't it already been established that the rebels have the support of Al Qaeda? And how many times have we underestimated Al Qaeda's capabilities before? Given Al Qaeda's track record, the use of chemical weapons isn't exactly beneath them. The production and deployment isn't exactly anywhere close to rocket science either for either chemical or biological weapons. Which is one of the reasons to bring the hammer down hard on anyone which uses it; it is one of those items humanity at large *really* doesn't want to allow as an acceptable practice.
As long as it can be established who is actually behind it. At this point we don't even know what the delivery system for the attack was. "Chemical Weapons" paints an image of a missile or a bomb, which makes it sound like a military action. But for all we know, it could've been the equivalent of a suicide bomber.
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By Asura.Kingnobody 2013-09-04 11:47:21
Lakshmi.Sparthosx said: »You know as well as I this is a no win scenario for folks like yourself. If Obama had attacked, you'd call him a dictator and make a reference to Hugo Chavez and if he didn't attack you'd bring up Putin and getting bullied by Russia.
It's so much easier on us all if you just say you don't like Obama because he's Obama.
Thought that was obvious.
Quote: My opposition is to the strikes period, regardless of who' in the White House. They won't accomplish the objectives of removing Assad and we're not hopped up on enough freedom and democracy to invade Syria and Iran.
Get an international coalition to back strikes and I'd sit a bit easier but knowing it won't remove the man in charge or degrade his chemical weapons stockpiles leaves me feeling the action is symbolic rather than practical. Again, I personally don't want to strike Syria, but our POS...err....PotUS has drawn the line. Like it or not, we have to strike. Unless we want to be called blowhards and such.
This will lead to WWIII...
Siren.Flavin
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By Siren.Flavin 2013-09-04 11:47:21
Phoenix.Amandarius said: »Which means there is absolutely zero upside to striking Syria besides Obama saving face for a couple days, til the ***hits the fan. Well, that and Assad (supposedly) used chemical weapons. What, we went from absolutely knowing that he used chemical weapons to supposedly? I thought you liberals always trust the government, except when a Republican is the president. If a republican president were in place right now doing the same things would you be blatantly pounding him as you do Obama? If we had a republican president who is exactly like Obama, then yes. If we had a real leader in the White House, we would have already done what said leader would have done. Either attack or not. Not one who wants to shift blame from himself (since he opened his big mouth) to somebody else (which is what he is doing by "letting" Congress decide what to do). lol well I can't say I believe you based on your previous stances but to each their own...
You mean like the last time he acted without approval from congress and people were throwing around words like impeachment again... so by making his stance known and following the proper procedure he is therefore shifting blame and the like...
I'm not saying he is blameless or right or wrong... just that your views are laughable at this moment... though what does my opinion really matter in the end...
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By Asura.Kingnobody 2013-09-04 11:49:04
Phoenix.Amandarius said: »Which means there is absolutely zero upside to striking Syria besides Obama saving face for a couple days, til the ***hits the fan. Well, that and Assad (supposedly) used chemical weapons. What, we went from absolutely knowing that he used chemical weapons to supposedly? I thought you liberals always trust the government, except when a Republican is the president. If a republican president were in place right now doing the same things would you be blatantly pounding him as you do Obama? If we had a republican president who is exactly like Obama, then yes. If we had a real leader in the White House, we would have already done what said leader would have done. Either attack or not. Not one who wants to shift blame from himself (since he opened his big mouth) to somebody else (which is what he is doing by "letting" Congress decide what to do). lol well I can't say I believe you based on your previous stances but to each their own...
You mean like the last time he acted without approval from congress and people were throwing around words like impeachment again... so by making his stance known and following the proper procedure he is therefore shifting blame and the like...
I'm not saying he is blameless or right or wrong... just that your views are laughable at this moment... though what does my opinion really matter in the end... The president doesn't need congress's approval to authorize a strike.
Just to declare war. That is it.
He doesn't need approval, but he is getting it to shift the blame to others instead of himself.
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By Lakshmi.Sparthosx 2013-09-04 12:06:36
You just said that this could trigger WWIII and then "the president doesn't need congress' approval to strike"
Cmon man, you aren't even trying. You're aflutter with the idea that a liberal president could throw us into a World War. It'd be the ultimate ammo in your toolbelt. Bush started Iraq? WELL OBAMA STARTED THERMONUCLEAR WARFARE!
As for that WWIII bit... keep waiting.
1, Do you think it will happen?
- I do.
2, What do you think we will target?
- This depends on what we can target I suppose, possibilities include, but are not limited to (and do feel free to add other possible targets.):
2a, Infrastructure. (I think this unlikely.)
- 2a/1 Military infrastructure. Airfields, repair depots, radar installations, supply routs, docks, and harbors.
2b, Degrading Assad's war machine by destroying war equptment. (But they have been dispersing heavy war gear for a week or more.)
2c, Decapitation. Targeting essential personnel. (Our intelligence system isn't good at finding and tracking individuals but Mossad is.)
2d, Decimation. Targeting military personnel.
3, What are the odds that Hamas and Al Qaeda backed rebel groups will "accidentally" be hit by "friendly fire"? (And due to our links with the more moderate rebel groups we should have good intel on these.)
4, Will it make a difference? Long term, short term, to the conduct of the war, to the world wide TV audience? (I know it will make a difference to the bottom lines of many companies.)
Thoughts? And please no derailing to "Obamacare", "Obamaphones", or comparing the size of John McCain's and Ron Paul's testicles. (Well, unless you have personally examined both, then please start a new thread on it.)
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