Syria's War Nearing Resolution?

[tuco]

Well, then you are a silent psychic, which as you probably agree is not worth much on the psychic market

So I guess, the short and loud interest is over now and we can carry on, till next chemical attack, or?

[dimreepr]

25 minutes ago, tuco said:

Well, then you are a silent psychic, which as you probably agree is not worth much on the psychic market

I was projecting it psychically, where do you think you got the idea 

27 minutes ago, tuco said:

So I guess, the short and loud interest is over now and we can carry on, till next chemical attack, or?

Despite all the rhetoric, I doubt Russia really wants to push it and they're the best bet to reign in Assad.

[Ten oz]

11 hours ago, MigL said:

My thoughts ( for what they're worth ), would be to target Assad.
Not necessarily to kill him, but just to throw a good scare into him.
Make him feel like he'll never be safe again, and can be taken out anytime.

That might just change his attitude.

I agree with this. Targeting facilities which Assad can afford to lose and killing Syrian soldiers at those facilities whom Assad doesn't care about accomplishes little. 

[Raider5678]

2 hours ago, Ten oz said:

I agree with this. Targeting facilities which Assad can afford to lose and killing Syrian soldiers at those facilities whom Assad doesn't care about accomplishes little. 

Perhaps this could work. Scaring him might do the trick.

 

 

However, when you begin targeting world leaders, things get complicated.

Because it's like the ultimate unspoken rule of modern global warfare: Don't target the leader unless you're willing to go all in.

If you do kill him with missiles on accident(Launching billion dollar explosives at targets does that sometimes), then it's not as easy to say "This was definitely not a declaration of war" because it basically is.

 

 

4 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Despite all the rhetoric, I doubt Russia really wants to push it and they're the best bet to reign in Assad.

Perhaps, but it might become another China/North Korea thing. To the world: "We don't support North Korea." To North Korea: "Here, have some oil."

[StringJunky]

3 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

If you do kill him with missiles on accident(Launching billion dollar explosives at targets does that sometimes), then it's not as easy to say "This was definitely not a declaration of war" because it basically is.

The leader should carry the can really and get shot at but you are right, unfortunately. If I was boss, I'd have a team of assassins just for them... the enemy foot soldiers are blameless, by and large. Before your time, but it was really acutely obvious in the Falklands conflict... the Argentine soldiers  were quite happy to surrender to the UK forces eventually. It wasn't their war and they were ill-equipped.

"Forward! He cried, from the rear,  as the front rank died" - Sums it up.

[dimreepr]

27 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

Perhaps, but it might become another China/North Korea thing. To the world: "We don't support North Korea." To North Korea: "Here, have some oil."

 

It's a different dynamic China uses NK as a buffer to its territory. 

[Raider5678]

21 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

If I was boss, I'd have a team of assassins just for them.

For some reason I get the feeling the U.S.A. definitely has a team of assassins, they just aren't using them.

13 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

It's a different dynamic. China uses NK as a buffer to its territory. 

Fair enough.

 

[Ten oz]

Trump proclaimed "Mission Accomplished". I am not sure what that means from a policy position with regards to continued U.S. Involvement in Syria. I assume it means to recent decision to strike targets has no real impact on long term strategy. Hard to tell though because a long term strategy has yet to be clearly communicated. For now it seems Assad stays and barring more chemical attacks it the near future Assad gets to stay indefinitely. 

Quote

 

WASHINGTON — On the morning after, President Trump declared success. The surgical strike against chemical weapons facilities in Syria had been executed perfectly, he said on Saturday. “Mission Accomplished!” he wrote on Twitter.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/us/politics/trump-syria-policy.amp.html#ampshare=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/us/politics/trump-syria-policy.html

 

 

[iNow]

The “mission” was to blow 3 things up. They did that. It was accomplished. He also knows saying it in this way will rile people up making them recall the horrible aircraft carrier banner after GWB repelled down in flight gear like 6 weeks into the Iraq war. By saying it this way, he manages in parallel to distract from the fact that they have no broader strategy in Syria or for the region. 

Since all talking heads will be debating if it was the right turn of phrase. 

[Raider5678]

5 hours ago, Ten oz said:

Trump proclaimed "Mission Accomplished". I am not sure what that means from a policy position with regards to continued U.S. Involvement in Syria.

I'm not sure either, however I believe you've taken this statement out of context.

He was referring to the air strikes, not Syria.

[iNow]

We’re also talking about something that happened May 1, 2003. That phrase has important history and deeper context for  those who watched it in real time then watched our troops continue dying for more than another decade.

[tuco]

Syria: Will the world be even more dangerous, cruel, unjust?

Quote

Washington has thus signalled a new, more overtly military phase of intervention in Syria. The American war against Syria did not begin with Donald Trump. Barack Obama launched his war in the summer of 2011, claiming that it was necessary to produce “democratic transition”. This fiction masked Washington’s paramount geopolitical goal – to deny adversaries, particularly Iran and Russia, space in Syria, or, if space could not be denied, to make these powers bleed.

Quote

Most of the blood has not been drawn from Iran, Russia, nor from Syria’s privileged political elite, but from the Syrian people. The country has been transformed into one of the world’s worst humanitarian disaster zones. Over half of the population has been displaced; more than half a million have perished; non-Sunni religious minorities have been “cleansed” from all areas that were conquered by western-backed “moderate” jihadists, as well as those controlled by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

Quote

 As Trump, Macron and May ramp up military action in Syria, they need to be asked: Does their war in Syria conform to western civilisation’s traditional “just war” doctrine as set forth by Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas? The 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church – the institutional repository of this doctrine - defines it in these terms: A just war is defined as “a legitimate defence by military force in which: The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave or certain; All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; and There must be a serious prospect of success; The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.”

2

Quote

Something very similar happened in 2003 when a publicly declared “born again” US President rejected Pope John Paul II’s appeal for adherence to the “just war” doctrine, and instead ordered the invasion of Iraq on the false pretext of weapons of mass destruction and the imperative of transition to democracy – a war that proved to be the catalyst for the destruction of Iraq’s ancient Christian community, not to mention many other calamities.

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/1158/syria-will-the-world-be-even-more-dangerous-cruel-unjust

----

But there is a red line, folks, and we are good guys!

To paraphrase a classic, to deceive oneself is the most common deception.  

[Ten oz]

Quote

 

America's top general on Saturday said he was involved in "routine dialogue" with the White House about military options should Syria ignore U.S. warnings against using chemical weapons in an expected assault on the enclave of Idlib.

Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said no decision had been made by the United States to employ military force in response to a future chemical attack in Syria.

"But we are in a dialogue, a routine dialogue, with the president to make sure he knows where we are with regard to planning in the event that chemical weapons are used," he told a small group of reporters during a trip to India.

Dunford later added: "He expects us to have military options and we have provided updates to him on the development of those military options."

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has massed his army and allied forces on the front lines in the northwest, and Russian planes have joined his bombardment of rebels there, in a prelude to a widely expected assault despite objections from Turkey.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-military-drawing-options-should-syria-use-chemical-weapons-n907741

 

Still a very messy situation in Syria. I wish the media here in the U.S. would spend less time discussing who hates working for Trump & why they hate it and focus on important developments in Syria and Yemen.

I remember here in the U.S. just after 9/11 there is all this surprise about over the fact that a country named Afghanistan existed, terrorists loosely affiliated with the CIA lived there, and a lot of them hated the U.S.. "Why do they hate us" led many of News broadcasts. In the years that flowed many politicians insisted that as a nation we could not never take our eyes off the ball ever again. That the U.S. had been asleep at the wheel and not focused even on evil around the world. An "Axis of Evil" was identified and it was declared that preemption was justified. Today the U.S. is again asleep at the wheel. Due to lack of media coverage most people I interact with assume the Syrian and Yemen conflicts are settled. Flippant U.S. policy which initially supported insurgency with money and weapons only to lose interest and pull away has resulted in numerous causalities and fostered resentment across the region similar to Afghanistan in the 80's. It is a serious problem and I hope it doesn't continue to remain ignored. 

[dimreepr]

3 hours ago, Ten oz said:

Still a very messy situation in Syria. I wish the media here in the U.S. would spend less time discussing who hates working for Trump & why they hate it and focus on important developments in Syria and Yemen.

Who hates who seems very relevant.

[Ten oz]

Chemical gas has been used again. Russia is claiming it was the  Rebels and a UK base human rights group monitoring in the area claim it was the Syrian Govt.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-46337143

[StringJunky]

I highly doubt the rebels have the infrastructure to make such weapons.

[iNow]

But by merely introducing the falsehood, Russia has us talking about / rebutting the rebels idea instead of focusing on the actual issue. 

[Ten oz]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

But by merely introducing the falsehood, Russia has us talking about / rebutting the rebels idea instead of focusing on the actual issue. 

Here in the U.S. such has been the political norm for a few years now. Any claim regardless of how absurd is expected to be treated seriously. 

[Raider5678]

On 11/26/2018 at 6:26 AM, Ten oz said:

Chemical gas has been used again. Russia is claiming it was the  Rebels and a UK base human rights group monitoring in the area claim it was the Syrian Govt.

1

It's interesting that they've changed their strategy. Prior to Trump launching missiles at them, during Trump's term alone, they had used chemical attacks 8 times, all relatively open compared to this. Since then, there was silence until now, where suddenly the rebels are accused of using the chemical weapons instead. The dynamics have changed.

 

Regardless guys, let's focus on the real monster in the middle east, Israel. They received 68 human rights condemnations from the UN Human Rights Council.

Syria received 20. 

Edited December 4, 2018 by Raider5678

[iNow]

I didn’t neg rep you, but understand why someone did. Whataboutism. It’s a garbage approach to rational debate. 

[Raider5678]

5 hours ago, iNow said:

I didn’t neg rep you, but understand why someone did. Whataboutism. It’s a garbage approach to rational debate. 

The point made by Ten Oz earlier is that Syria is being largely ignored by the media and such. I thought that was a prime example to back up his point.

 

Or if you're refferring to the stuff before that, I don't see how it could be taken ad whataboutism.

[Ten oz]

Turkey appears to be considering new rounds of troop deployments into Syria citing the a failure on the part of the U.S. to handle security threats in the region, Link. Meanwhile in the U.S. the White House is looking to withdraw from Syria with POTUS proclaiming (via tweet) that ISIS has been defeated in Syria and that ISIS was "only reason for being there", Link.

Current developments make the future uncertain. It seems that despite repeated use of chemical weapons Assad while go unpunished and his power in the region buoyed by Russia will be solidified. I have no idea what, if any role, the U.S. will play moving forward. 

[Ten oz]

Sadly Trump's administration is more interested in claiming victory than focusing on what's really happening. Despite the insistence that ISIL is defeated recent attacks are still killing people including U.S. service members. 

Quote

 

Four Americans, including two U.S. service members, were among those killed in an attack in northern Syria Wednesday, the same day Vice President Mike Pence said ISIS, which claimed responsibility for the attack, "has been defeated."

U.S. Central Command said in a statement Wednesday that an apparent explosion killed two service members, a Department of Defense civilian and a Pentagon contractor while they were "conducting a local engagement in Manbij, Syria." Three service members were also injured. 

Link

 

 

[iNow]

46 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Despite the insistence that ISIL is defeated recent attacks are still killing people including U.S. service members. 

Interestingly, I believe Pence made those comments several hours AFTER the attacks, by which time he'd surely have been briefed and known the truth.

[Ten oz]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

Interestingly, I believe Pence made those comments several hours AFTER the attacks, by which time he'd surely have been briefed and known the truth.

I agree he surely should have been briefed and known but in this administration who knows.