Questions On The Forthcoming Syria Strike.

They aren't above those things, because of course you'll see lots of articles similar to the ones in the US, but I've yet to see anything from a mainstream Western media organization detail something like this http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2013/09/2013927127381112.html or this http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/09/201392135421198224.html.

Just like with the events of the Arab Spring, Al Jazeera's actual reporting makes Western media's reporting downright shameful. We hear, "this senator said this" and "Obama's poised to strike" rather than what's actually going on in the country that we're about to attack. Or, in reference to that first link, the likely targets and capabilities of each nation if it does goes through.

My guess is that we'll strike regardless of the vote, though I'm sure enough politicians will get their pockets filled enough to not care about their constituency. I'm sure both sides of Congress will approve the strike, though will be a "close vote".

Anyway, after the strike, we'll see a retaliation of some kind, some ship or base will get attacked or have an attack attempted. Of course Obama will come out screaming, "Syria has now attacked the United States which is an act of war!" Then we'll be hearing the war drums beat even harder than we have about this "calibrated, precise, narrow, super-easy limited surgical corrective action".

It's also likely that this is a political move to draw up a war between us and Iran.

The point is, 90% of the reasons you have cited for hating him are complete crap. Citing a myriad of things from strictly congressional boondoggles to non-scandals. And you are far more articulate and informed than MOST of the vocal Obama haters. They are also the ones who tend to bring the issue of race into the conversation. You don't often hear liberal pundits accuse conservative pundits of being racist, but you often hear them say that they are accused of it. So who is this masked liberal running around silently accusing all the conservatives of being racist?

So no, we don't label anyone who disagrees with him as a racist. I disagree with him too, but I have actual reasons for it and actual evidence to back it up.

This is incomprehensible tinfoil hat gibberish.

What a load of crap.

Just because you can't see anything with your rose-colored glasses on doesn't mean the rest of the nation doesn't see the ***hitting the fan.

And, unlike you, I have actually read what gets presented as policy from Obama's side. What gets presented to Senate, only to be voted down by the House. I also see what gets voted by the House, only to be ignored by the Senate because your buddy Reid doesn't even do his job to present what has been passed by the House to be debated on the Senate floor. And liberals accuse the House of doing nothing...

When you finally wake up and see how crappy the nation is because of Obama, let us know. We will accept you as part of society then. Until then, go play in the corner while us grownups talk.

I don't see us going to war with Iran with Obama in the big chair however the potential of mission creep is very possible considering the consequences of Assad's fall.

Chemical stockpiles going sideways will most definitely trigger a U.S response.

Not even remotely close.

Both China and Russia are far far behind the current US Military. Strategic capability alone dwarf them both combined. Doesn't matter because all involved have ICBM and SSBN capabilities which renders any conventional conflict a non-issue. There will be no conflict with Russia nor China, ever. Simply too much money on the table for Hollywood fantasies to be realistic. Long before the US gets involved in Syria there will be private discussions between these three entities about exactly what is and is not allowed to be done. Then both China and Russia will make loud international statements with the whole dog & pony show that goes with it.

Personally I don't want us involved in Syria at all. If the PoTUS decides to commit strategic assets then that's literally his job. He doesn't actually need congressional approval to order US Military assets into a region, the US Constitution gives the position quite a bit of authority in the matters of Military. He needs their approval to declare war (war powers / ect..) and get extra funding (Congress can defund an operation by passing budget legislation). I absolutely feel we should not send ANY ground forces outside of SOF "trainers".

Also the people here really need to understand that domestic issues are largely Congress's prevue. The President has very little power over domestic affairs, he can coax, condemn and bully people around with power-points, speech's and "agendas" but has very little power to effect change. At best he can implement Executive Orders telling the various departments how to handle laws congress already passed and only if such orders don't explicitly violate the letter of law. Stuff like lowering the priority of MJ related investigations to the bottom for federal law enforcement officers (State LEO's are controlled by their respective states executive branch). Hell "Obamacare" is a misnomer as Obama had very little to do with it, he can't do so much as correct punctuation on that law, it's 100% congress's issue. Of course they like to use his name / face as a figurehead for it since he supported it's creation, as did many other people / politicians.

There goes the chance for America not to do a military strike and take the C-weapons out of the picture...
If there wouldn't be so many lifes at risk one could laugh for months at the show displayed today.

If this doesn't have a political motive to it, then Obama is more incompetent than anyone's worse fear. Kerry sitting at the same congress 40 years after he compared the american war machine to the pillaging of "Genghis Khan", only this time looking to run in and use the war machine "for the children". Today Kerry was setting expectations that the strike will be "incredibly small", as if people are so dumb they cannot fathom WAR not going according to plan. Obama calling out a "Red Line" a year ago and then backing off of it as though video records of the speech don't exist.

It's total amateur hour at the white house. Couple that with a congress that is afraid to confront the administration because the media will call them racist, and this situation becomes quite precarious.

I can easily see this thing barreling into WWIII. Please don't put our politicians into the box of WWIII or racist, I don't want to know what they'll choose.

Lol, keep firing blanks nausi. Incompetence seems to be the GOP word of the day, it describes them well. World war 3? Stick with video games.

i can't believe people are this disrespectful of a president. he's not a great leader, but this rhetoric is getting out of hand

Same could be said of Bush. He had received just as much hate, if not more, over a longer period of time.

Yet, he has a much higher approval rating than Obama...maybe it is because people are realizing that Bush wasn't the devil that the liberals have made him out to be, or that Obama's policies are worse, or a combination of both.

fyi, nobody relies on the approval ratings of a 6 years former president and those Gallup poles were poorly worded and executed. even if it was correct, it's still irrelevant. drop the partisan taglines, my statement had nothing to do with bush.

bush probably got more crap than obama has, but that only strengthens my position that people are incredibly disrespectful of the position.

we should be critical, sometimes to the point of "disrespectful" in the eyes of the faint of heart, of our elected officals.

Yeah, those who claim disrespect are kidding themselves. But hey, at least you resisted the urge to call me "racist".

You liberals seemingly have an awfully short memory, I remember people burning effigies of W. Can't do that to Obama, the double standard kicks in and you'd be called racist for sure.

oh damn so many racists up in hur

Being critical is VERY important, but there is a supreme lack of informed critique. Some of the most trusted information networks have been playing a lot of small-town Q&A segments with "average americans" without an ounce of journalistic integrity. Shamelessly pandoring to ratings with the "keep your government hands away from my medicade" crowd.

Let's stick to the FACTS, even if we disagree in our analysis.

One quote was "Nobody in the world supports us" which is very untrue. The last article I saw said that currently 17 countries have committed to supporting a strategic strike on Syria.

"it will start WWIII" - Complete BS, even the most outspoken opponents of a strike (Russia and China) are sponsoring resolutions that would have Syria surrender or destroy it's chemical weapons to avoid an attack. Russia has also officially stated that they will not retaliate on any country that participates.

"Obama drew a 'red line'" - While he said publicly last year that the use, transport, or acquisition of chemical weapons would be a "red line" for us, he didn't draw that line. The 1993 chemical weapons convention set the precedent as well as outlining possible consequences for anyone using them even if they didn't participate or sign the agreement. Syria is one of about half a dozen countries that DID NOT sign that agreement.

There are a lot more examples. I think it's basically a bygone discussion of whether the people support an attack, the overwhelming majority of the public worldwide is against an attack.

The only time race has been brought up in this thread are by you and king as a red herring. Plenty of people disagree with the president without having to pretend that someone will call them a racist. Drop it, it has nothing to do with the topic, and the fact that you are so defensive of your tolerance is a pretty good indicator of your personal doubts.

I agree with you on that point.

the rest of your post seems to be directed at Nausi, whom I do not nessicarily agree with, nor will speak for.

Well there you go, you just "called" me racist by suggesting that trumpeting ones tolerance somehow invalidates it. Well done! That's exactly how it works in congress too.

You just got done telling everyone that people are unbelievably disrespectful of this president, seemingly in response to my post that it was "amateur hour" at the white house. Jeez, it's not like I spouted a racial slur and called him the inverse of a cracker. What was so disrespectful about suggesting that gross presidential inexperience and incompetence combined with military action could quagmire the US into a 3rd world war?

The answer:

Because it's Obama!

I didn't call you anything and my comment about disrespect was in reference to the newscasts of the last few days. You're not a victim, grow up.

Sorry, I should have said "had."

People are only disrespectful of the position if there is a weak leader or if there was a major scandal.

Clinton was loved until he made love. Then he was ridiculed.

Bush was ok until that crap with falsified intelligence came out against him about Iraq. Then he was the devil.

Problem with Obama, he was a flake from the beginning. But those that loved Obama accused the other side of being hatemongers, racist, evil people and so on. Hate flowed from both sides of the aisle, and that is a major reason why this country is as divided as it is now.

that quote, "it will start WWIII" was actually a sound opinion, because this was made BEFORE Kerry gave an out to Assad by allowing them to surrender their weapons. How little your memory is...

Which means that they are not legally bound to said agreement. When Obama opened his fat mouth and stated that if there was evidence that supports Assad using chemical weapons on his citizens, that was him drawing that "red line" on the sand and daring Assad to step on it.

Now, if he did or not is the question. For all we know, the terrorists themselves did it to their own people (they would just tell the victims that there are XX number of virgins waiting for them in heaven before pushing them in the line of fire, they have done that many times in Iraq). We need to find out if he really did before actually striking, and so far the evidence isn't looking that way...

I only brought it up showing that it is the fallback excuse that liberals use when you don't agree with their messiah...

...and rightly so, it IS!

Syria is still bound to the conditions of the 1993 chemical weapons agreement as the countries who did sign it are bound to enforce it. It's a common part of such agreements to prevent countries from working through another country.

The "will start WWIII" comment was made by a guy from Kentucky on a news program I saw last night, none of my quotes are people here or I would have quoted them.

mildly interesting


hopefully nothing will come of this after all.

(I'm not saying that's the case, as this could just be a bid for time, or a slew of other things)