Real Murkins oppose intervention in Syria:
Americans strongly oppose U.S. intervention in Syria’s civil war and believe Washington should stay out of the conflict even if reports that Syria’s government used deadly chemicals to attack civilians are confirmed, a Reuters/Ipsos poll says.
Yes, if we had a Republican president, wingnuttia would be blasting the Lee Greenwood to show its support for Dear Leader’s military venture….but we don’t.
All the serious people are for war in Syria, though. Steve M puts it well:
Morning Joe greenroom types will be on board, and that’s all that will matter.
I don’t have much of an opinion about Syria, but take a step back and it’s troubling. The public wants to keep Social Security and Medicare as is, the serious people want to decimate the programs. The public wants to stay out of wars, the serious people want to go into all the middle eastern countries (save Israel and Jordan, I guess) one by one.
Stealing from the plebes and using their kids as cannon fodder….revolutions have started over less.
Belafon
Ever read the history of the American Revolution?
mistermix
Great title.
cleek
Geezer Butler’s lyrics remain timeless:
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah
Robert Zimmerman’s, too:
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
Odie Hugh Manatee
“Stealing from the plebes and using their kids as cannon fodder….revolutions have started over less. “
Sorry to disappoint you but there’s something on TV and Hoverounds don’t have the range for a revolution.
Patricia Kayden
I really wish President Obama would keep out of the Syrian civil war. There is no reason that the US has to get involved in every Middle East skirmish. So after hitting some Syrian military targets, what’s next? Funny how the US didn’t get involved in Rwanda or the Congo (where thousands were killed and raped), but always has to get involved in the Middle East.
Comrade Jake
I wonder if the airstrikes will be tweeted this time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
our kids aren’t the cannon fodder here, Syrians’ are. Not even John Sidney McBurns III or Lindsey Smithers have called for ‘boots on the ground’, have they?
Comrade Jake
Just to be clear… we’re going to launch an airstrike on Syria for humanitarian reasons? That sounds about right.
c u n d gulag
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I don’t know, CBS and Time Warner are having a greed-fight, and if it continues, without 1/2 the NFL games and SHOWTIME programming, SOME people might notice!
And maybe some senior will invent long-range Hoverounds.
Cacti
@Patricia Kayden:
So, intervention in middle eastern civil war bad, intervention in African civil war good?
Alexandra
From a cursory look around, judging by the flying monkeys, it seems to be more along the desultory lines of either:
• Nobel Peace Prize, huh
• Needs congress to declare war
• Benghazzzi
Perhaps they’re waiting to hear from Sarah Palin to settle on one message.
MikeJ
@Patricia Kayden:
Rwanda has been brought up as an American failure ever since, and used time and time again to demonstrate why we should be involved. Samantha Power wrote a book and built a career on it.
Liberty60
Maybe we will get lucky and this will cause another fracture between the Very Serious Republicans and the Real Murkins.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@c u n d gulag:
You’re too optimistic. :)
Cacti
@MikeJ:
It’s an easy and thoughtless criticism for the knee jerk left to spit out, without stopping to recognize that it tacitly endorses intervention.
balconesfault
Among Republicans, I think 60% are unreformed neocons who really want war in Syria … 30% aren’t hot on it but would love to see that particular anchor tied around Obama’s and the Democrats ankle … 10% flat out oppose any kind of strikes.
Among Democrats – I don’t know what the hell. The only site I’ve been able to find actively lobbying against it is Democrats.com, and after putting up their link to petition your congressmen to block action in Syria a day ago, they only have about 8000 signators so far.
As I’ve said elsewhere – barring a LOT more info to convince me that strikes in Syria are critical to America’s self interests, this may be the first thing to make me truly disgusted with the Obama Administration. I cannot conjecture a justification that doesn’t make me very sad for the future.
Matt McIrvin
@Alexandra: Well, you know, this is just about the one context in which yelling about Benghazi might actually be apropos. What they yell about it is incoherent crazytown stuff, but you have to start somewhere.
danielx
How many times do we have to watch the reruns of this movie?
Zifnab25
@Patricia Kayden:
Um… slow down there a bit. Clinton DID try to get involved in Somalia, and that gave us Black Hawk Down. Then when Rwanda rolled around, he got cold feet. Then Kosovo, and he dove in because of all the regrets regarding Rwanda (yes, I know Kosovo isn’t Africa, but it isn’t in the Middle East either).
And it isn’t as though we are utterly absent from Africa. The State Department has been more than willing to work with the Gates Foundation to help their vaccination program. The President sent troops into Africa to try and deal with Kony. I think every third TED Talk is about fighting poverty or drought or famine in the region. Hell, there have been books written about how we are TOO involved in the region.
US involvement in Africa certainly doesn’t get the kind of 2-year-long national debate and cable news media coverage that the Syrian Revolution has received. But that’s hardly the fault of American NGOs or foreign policy makers.
MikeJ
@Cacti
Not tacitly. As I said, look at Sam Power. She explicitly endorses intervention.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Rats, I was hoping this would be a thread about Idris Elba.
(Text is NSFW.)
Zifnab25
@Liberty60: They’ll all rally around “O’BUMMER IS A FAILURE”, even if they can’t agree on why.
srv
Don’t you read the real crazies anymore? The Middle East is already Obama’s Vietnam, man. Who started this thing anyway?
> Jordan
The Hashemites are on the list, just a little farther down in priorities.
MomSense
@MikeJ:
Let’s add this to the long list of things Obama is responsible for screwing up even before he was President.
Chris
Oh, I’m sure we can think of a reason to go into Jordan.
Cacti
@MomSense:
He also caused the stock market crash of 1929, and both space shuttle disasters.
Thanks Obama!
CONGRATULATIONS!
@danielx: Forever, it seems. It’s been running all my life.
srv
@MikeJ: We can’t make fun of democrat neocons here.
Scott S.
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: That’s entirely brilliant.
Butch
Can I admit that I’m a little torn? I don’t think anyone in the administration, or anywhere else, has any idea what the strikes will accomplish or what an exit strategy would look like. At the same time, the photos of the victims of the chemical attack are horrific and it’s hard to think that doing nothing is acceptable, either.
Morbo
@Zifnab25:
Surely you meant to say 2-day-long coverage, right? Because the media certainly haven’t been paying much attention to Syria until Kerry’s speech.
Cacti
Considering the UN passed the Chemical Weapons Convention with 193 signatories, you would think that it has an organizational interest in preventing chemical attacks on civilian populations. This basic fact seems to be carefully omitted from all of the front page posts I’ve seen on this topic to date.
The Other Bob
@balconesfault:
Really? IF (And this admittedly is an IF) the U.S. can destroy or diminish the ability of the government to use chemical weapons we should not do so?
Is there ever a reason you would accept the use of the military?
srv
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-intelligence-seen-as-central-to-us-case-against-syria/#.Uhzht0NI6vI.email
nemesis
So the usual gop suspects will be clamoring for war, claiming to want to impeach the POTUS if he doesnt act, and when he does, the same gop troublemakers will scream about Obamas failure to lead, his failure to consult Congress and his failure to affect a winning strategery. SSDD.
Why do we have to be the worlds police? Yes, if innocent civilians are being slaughtered something must be done. But thats ALWAYS the excuse, along with other excuses used to sway the public into supporting yet another senseless conflict.
For fucks sake, we havent yet paid for the past two unnecessary wars. Cant we take a break? Cant France and GB find their collective nuts and run this one on their own? Sure they could, but our MIC companies would have none of the spoils.
The Other Bob
@Butch:
I think that is normal and acceptable to be torn. Should we not have gone into Libya? Should we have not used air power in Kosovo? We should be apprehensive about this, but I cannot say there is never an instance when we should not get involved.
Omnes Omnibus
@srv: And your point is?
Hawes
There are coercive strikes intended to force a result. Like Libya or Kosovo.
There are punitive strikes intended to simply punish bad behavior. Like Desert Fox.
I don’t have a problem smacking around the Assad regime for breaking the law on the use of WMD.
Still we would have more moral authority if we hadn’t been weatherboarding people a few years back.
balconesfault
@Butch: At the same time, the photos of the victims of the chemical attack are horrific and it’s hard to think that doing nothing is acceptable, either.
And the photos of victims of missile strikes will be less horrific?
Before you DO something, it necessary to think through consequences of what you’re planning on doing. Will Assad suddenly say “damn, they’re serious”, and change his behavior? Not bloody likely. Will taking that first step necessarily put the US into a position where we have to up the ante next time? Much more likely.
Get the UN, or the Arab League, to initiate action, and the US can support it. We shouldn’t be rounding up an ad hoc posse just because we should “do something”.
cleek
@The Other Bob:
that seems like the world’s biggest IF.
to destroy their ability to use chemical weapons, we’d have to:
1. know where all their chemical weapons are
2. be able to destroy them
3. hopefully without releasing them into the environment
4. before Syria decides it’s better to just start using-up chemical weapons, rather than lose them
5. without committing troops
6. and without doing another decade of nation building
7. and without getting drawn into the civil war and the inevitable spin-off wars that will happen once we decide to unseat the current government – which we will, because that’s what we do.
aimai
I wish the Obama Administratio had the courage to basically come forward and say “We can’t afford foreign entanglements until we have fully funded the ACA, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, the Federal Courts, roads and highways and bridges, and brought fracking and water pollution under control through regulation. We just can’t. There’s no money to deal with Syria. If the rest of the world feels that strongly about it they can pay for intervention themselves. We will not be doing it.”
The Other Bob
@The Other Bob:
oops – typo – “…but I cannot say there is never an instance when we should get involved.”
aimai
@balconesfault: I agree–this gas hysteria is driving me crazy. Its like the run up to Iraq all over again with people screetching “Rape rooms!” and “Think of the women and children!” and apparently completely unaware that bombing a major city like Baghdad was going to result in massive loss of civilian life.
Omnes Omnibus
@balconesfault:
The case is being put to the UN.
Shirt
Who is going to pay for the dance? Since the plebes are supplying the fodder it’s only right that this new war be paid for by a stock transaction tax, and a progresive excise tax over earnings of $100K.
If somebody squeals just tell Romney that’s the price for keeping his sons out of harms way.
If we’re forced out onto the dance floor then make it a polka and stomp on their wallets.
Shirt
Southern Beale
Intervention in Syria is looking a little inevitable, if I’m interpreting my drum beats correctly.
But I’m hoping that my president will do the right thing. I’m refusing to believe that just because this looks like past situations it’s going to end up the same. Chuch Hagel is defense secretary now, not Donald Rumsfeld. Obama isn’t Bush. Let’s not assume there’s going to be a massive military invasion and occupation. I think those days are over.
Maybe Obama will send in drone to take out Assad and we can all get back to watching America’s Got Other Talents Besides Bombing Shit.
nemesis
@aimai: We always have the money for war. Those other things are just quaint frivolities.
Cacti
@aimai:
The fairly obvious difference in this instance is that chemical weapons were definitely used, unless you consider Doctors Without Borders to be a front for warmongers.
Southern Beale
Related only in the most tangential sense:
I can forgive her because she’s 20 and a kid. Her behavior doesn’t seem so different from a lot of adults, though.
The Other Bob
@cleek: @cleek:
I don’t necissarily disagree with you, about what you are saying, but there ARE instances where air-power has worked, has not drawn us into a full war and forced us to build a whole nations. In this case, i don’t even think this will topple the current leadership. That may be good or bad, but I don’t think we are guaranteed to be drawn in further.
I guess I trust the current President to be asking the questions you are aksing more than the last President, who did not even care to wonder.
Cacti
@Omnes Omnibus:
A lot of willful ignorance on this topic, no?
lamh36
Ok serious question how many people oppose most interventions in the Middle East or Africa cause the blahs are killing each other anyway so let em. Im just wondering if the semtiment would be the same if say England was still fighting with Ireland…or if say so me country in Africa was using chem weapons on say….Scotland.
Btw, I actually say dont intervene, but at what point do people consider intervention being warranted?
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: I tend to find intervention can be warranted when there is something we can actually do that will make a difference.
ChrisNYC
@Patricia Kayden: Lord’s Resistance Army ring a bell? There were “quagmire” posts on this very blog about Obama’s sending troops there to join troops from the African Union.
Cacti
@lamh36:
Well, they like to feign concern about Rwanda, years after the fact.
Does that count?
balconesfault
@Southern Beale:The affidavit says Jackson then raised her hand toward police in a threatening manner, and was warned to go back to the vehicle or she would be arrested.
She should be thanking her lucky stars today that she isn’t black … or the headlines today might be very different.
magurakurin
@Butch:
Well, since the latest I just read was that they are talking about three days of Tomahawk strikes, the exit strategy will be turn the ship around and steam back out into the Indian Ocean.
Now, if Iran retaliates in Israel, all bets are off, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is even remotely talking about anything other than missile strikes at this point. I still think it is a bad idea, but it doesn’t feel like something big. Then again, that’s what a lot of people thought in August of 1914, too….
piratedan
I guess I’m not the only one trying to deal with the hypocrisy on the small and grand scale. The big established powers (The West, mostly although I think Russia and China give nodding acquiescence since they understand that Europe and the US are wiggy about this) have stated that the use of chemical weapons/agents in conflicts are verboten and when they see them used they feel responsible to act. This is the position that Obama finds himself in, bad guys using chemical weapons (on its own citizens no less as if that’s somehow even more heinous than the use of them period) and therefore, someone has to do “something”…. that’s what the official rulebook says. On the whole, I tend to agree that the use of chemical agents in a conflict is a shade nastier than killing them conventionally, doesn’t necessarily mean that I am altogether in favor of jihad/genocide/ethnic cleansing or straight up armed conflict by other more conventional means but I guess there’s this perception that if people are fighting, the ability to procure and pick up a gun to potentially defend yourself somehow makes having an absurd advantage in firepower alright somehow but gassing or poisoning them is simply not done old chap (insert your tut-tutting tinged disdain here)
Problem is, this looks like a combo proxy/sectarian fight in which the US has no entry. The guy in charge is cozy with the Russians and as such, apparently Assad is allowed to act with a certain amount of impunity because its thought that the Russians will hamstring any attempts to allow an entity like the UN to act in a humanitarian or conciliatory way. The people being sucker punched by the weapons are people that generally aren’t friendly to US positions, the Sunni sect, who apparently have multiple flavors, those with Iranian backing, those with Saudi backing and then there’s strands of Al Queida doing what they can to be players. There’s the non-sectarians who appear to be caught in the middle of the religious violence but would also be happy to see Assad gone following on the coattails of the Arab Spring but appear to have started the conflict but have fallen off the tiger altogether.
The part I have absolutely no grasp on is what is the end game and what will Syria look like if/once somebody “wins”, I don’t know what the Vegas odds are but I doubt anyone is making book on this and Obama is left with a pu-pu platter of shitty choices, try and hunt down and punish who used those weapons and if so, by what means, with whose backing and support (the UN, The Arab League, Turkey, Israel?) and once “punished”, what’s next, we back off and let them keep killing each other? Do we lose our “ability” to use humanitarian events as a justification for the next area conflict that requires the restraint of the next monster from killing people indiscriminately by means that we’re too squeamish to allow?
I feel like we’re at that moment in the movie where Obama is Ben Stein calling “Buehler? Buehler?” and nobody has any answers because there aren’t any good ones. I find myself disappointed in my own lack of outrage in how one nation state is currently killing their own citizens and their means of doing so because I know that our intervention or lack thereof ends up being turned into a political football here and any attempts to try and help will have our motivation for doing so questioned and rightly so and to stand aside and do nothing still seems wrong.
At this point I’d just offer asylum to those that have managed to make it to the refugee camps and help them start their lives over and just walk away from the rest of it but even that doesn’t feel right somehow.
Sly
People need to stop pretending that there is an easy and good answer to Syria. To believe so is not to take the question seriously.
THAT’S RIGHT I SAID IT.
catclub
@balconesfault: “And the photos of victims of missile strikes will be less horrific?” This. They are much more horrific, so are not shown at all. Which somehow makes the thousands dead from missiles and mortars inconsequential.
I think more and more it was the guerrillas who did this. They get all the benefits. Assad gets nothing but grief from this. It makes no sense.
srv
There’s an old story John Connolly (I think) used to tell about Iraq round 1. HW wasn’t so enamored about doing anything but throw some Marines along the border as a tripwire (when it was already obvious Saddam thought he knew his boundaries). Then Maggie berated his manhood and then stroked it with “You are the leader of the free world!”
So who knows who’s the poodle and who’s wagging what. But at least some Brits have their priorities in order:
Maybe we should call these Presidential non-Wars Twerking Selfies. Gotta respect mah authority, erp, Red Lines.
@Omnes Omnibus: Clearly, it’s good that we have a purely objective, ally with no stake in the matter who can provide a curveball as needed.
oldster
@Butch:
“At the same time, the photos of the victims of the chemical attack are horrific and it’s hard to think that doing nothing is acceptable, either.”
Actually, doing nothing is acceptable.
In fact, doing nothing is a really, really good policy, when it’s the option least likely to make things worse.
And, seriously: all of our other options are far more likely to make things worse. For Syrians, for the region, and for ourselves.
We have no direct national security interest in starting a war with Syria. It would be a dumb thing to do.
And we cannot pretend that lobbing missiles at random countries is anything short of starting a war with them. If they declare war on us in response, we can hardly sputter, “but that is not what I meant at all; that is not it, at all.”
I voted for Obama because he opposed a dumb war. I will be very disappointed if he gets sucked into a dumb war of his own.
And, as futile as it probably was, I sent the WH a message yesterday saying so. Did it do much good? No. But it didn’t do any harm, either.
Have you sent a message of your own, yet?
Higgs Boson's Mate
The other side’s gerrymandering, 27 percenters, and voter suppression combined with our side’s “At least she/he isn’t a Republican,” mean that the consequences for ignoring the wishes of the electorate are slightly less than dick. The pols have managed to massage the system to the point that most of them will be re-elected as long as they avoid public cannibalism.
Bombs away!
aimai
@lamh36: I just had this discussion with a (white) brit who is jonesing for intervention. I think for racists all things are going to be about race +–that is, its additive. You don’t care about “their” women and children so the things that bump the incident up from merely awful to horrific don’t touch you emotionally.
But I think for people who are humanitarians or normally empathetic the addition of women and children and sympathetic civilians pushes the case from “internal politics in a strange place” to “we need to do something.”
But I don’t start with “what makes an incident so horrific we need to do something” because, among other things, I fail to see why gassing your own citizens is so horrific that we need to bomb someone while the fact that the Chinese are holding their own citizens in virtual prison conditions, and harvesting the organs of political prisoners, or the Japanese have managed to poison their own land and water through incompetent nuclear power don’t also “require some action.”
Bombing runs on a civilian population are a very blunt instrument to express our revulsion at the war crimes committed by a leadership. If we really wanted to do something about war crimes using weaponry we’d do something internationally to shut down the arms trade and the arms dealers, we’d freeze Syrian assets abroad, and we’d quarantine the Assad family holding them all strictly liable for the deaths of civilians. But we won’t do that and we can’t do that because its not in the interests or capacities of the international community. Where there is no true international community there can be no true international law or we have to accept the obvious which is that its not going to be effective and its not going to be just.
Butch
@balconesfault: You make it sound like I’m cheerleading, and I’m clearly not. It should be clear from my post that I don’t know what the right answer is.
Hawes
@catclub: I thought the rebels might have done it, but now it looks like we intercepted communications between the Assad defense ministry and the guy who launched them.
What is less clear is whether that guy was operating under orders from the regime or freelancing.
I don’t have a problem with limited involvement in Syria, just as I didn’t in Libya. Everyone’s talking about endgames. If we are punishing the Assad regime for using chemical weapons, we drop a small country’s GDP in ordinance and leave.
But if this was some douchebag acting on his own, that muddies things. For me at any rate.
aimai
@Cacti: I’m not accusing Doctor’s Without Borders of manufacturing the gas story–and there were Rape rooms in Iraq. But I don’t think either were a casus belli.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@balconesfault:
This would be my preferred solution.
Let the Iranians and the Saudis stop being rivals for long enough to show some leadership in the region (since their real interest lies in not letting the war spill outside of the Syrian borders, or even worse the Persian Gulf, where it would disrupt global oil markets).
Ignoring the use of WMD against civilians would have terrible long-term consequences (it would normalize their use). It would also, dare I say, be immoral.
Hawes
For those saying we don’t have a clear national security objective in Syria, I’d agree if I thought we were going to intervene with a mind to crafting an end to the conflict.
The national security agenda was laid out by Obama last year: No use of chemical weapons by anyone anywhere. That’s a global security agenda laid out by the Geneva Conventions.
The Other Bob
@Sly:
THAT’S RIGHT I SAID IT.
This x 1,000
weaselone
@aimai:
I agree. So who exactly is calling for bombing runs against the civilian population?
amk
@cleek: Yup, lotsa iffy stuff there. I am sure kenyan muslin will be asking these questions. But the bigger question is, who can he trust to answer them honestly? sam power seems to be a wash given her history.
Sly
@oldster:
The worst outcome is Jabhat Al-Nusra taking over Syria. A less worse outcome than that is Assad staying in power. A less worse outcome than that is the SNC taking over and falling apart due to internal squabbles, leading to a replication of Egypt at best or Afghanistan at the worst. The least worse outcome is the SNC taking over and not falling apart due to internal squabbles, but working them out politically over the course of a few generations.
None of those outcomes are made more or less likely by military intervention.
HomerUK
Imagine, if you will, a leader of a European state; one with whom the US and the UK have had manageable, if not absolutely friendly, relationships historically. Imagine that leader starts a civil war with 100,000 dead. Imagine that leader escalating and using toxic gas on its citizens (in particular those who oppose it). Imagine the US and UK saying “it’s their problem, let them sort it out”.
HomerUK
@amk: “Sam Power seems a wash given her history” – this is just bunk and just lazy reasoning. Sure, let’s ignore a highly qualified, intelligent foreign policy analyst just because she said something with which you disagreed with in the past. Let’s ascribe that disagreement to to her inability to “answer questions honestly” rather than a legitimate disagreement. Sorry, but that kind of reasoning just makes me mad. She might be wrong; she might be right but if your view of “answering questions honestly” is simply agreeing with you, that’s ridiculous.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
Mustard gas is both a carcinogen (causes cancer) and a mutagen (causes birth defects in the children of survivors). Sarin has fewer long-term aftereffects, but it can contaminate both food and water, and just touching water with sarin dissolved in it can expose you to it.
Chemical weapons aren’t banned by the UN because they kill people. They’re banned because they continue to kill people long after the war is supposed to be over. If Syria was using Agent Orange on their people, would you also think that was no big deal?
And, just to be clear, because I think chemical weapons are a big deal and the crossing of a line that must be punished, I think international intervention by the UN is what’s necessary. Unilateral action by the US doesn’t send the same message, so it’s pointless and counterproductive.
fuckwit
@Patricia Kayden: Two inter-related and irresistable reasons: OIL, and ISRAEL. Anything involving the middle east will involve either oil, or Israel, or both. I don’t think Syria has much oil, so I’m gonna guess in this case AIPAC will tell us what to do and we’ll do it. Carter Doctrine, yo.
ed_finnerty
sly
flag on the play. 15 yard penalty for actually making an informed and constructive comment on a blog. don’t you know that is not how the game is played.
balconesfault
@Butch: I’m sorry – I just felt compelled to take on that “it’s hard to think that doing nothing is acceptable, either” line.
Perhaps doing something is necessary. I just reject the idea that “something” right now involves taking actions that will directly kill people.
Laur
I would appreciate it if the Middle East could just get it’s goddamn shit together so we can do nothing and feel perfectly fine about it.
lojasmo
My prediction: Obama offers chained CPI to congress in return for permission to bomb the shit out of some brown people, because WORSE THAN BUSH!
Seriously, though…I suspect we will keep our hands off despite the drumbeats.
amk
@HomerUK: BS. Her tweets in the past 48 hours since the news of CW broke show a case of jumping the gun. Her position demands that she show some reticence instead of publicly wanking on twitter about getting into a war. Also. Too. Highly intelligent doesn’t mean honest ipso facto.
TAPX486
Science is truly amazing. Not only did Dick Cheney get a heart but with the face lift looks exactly like Joe Biden. Colin Powell’s face lift bears a striking resemblance to a former senator named John Kerry. Amazing. depressing
Belafon
@oldster: Questions for you:
1. Was getting involved in Kosovo, where we rained down bombs, a bad idea?
2. Was not getting involved in Rwanda a good idea?
What I’m wondering is, what would have have decided to do at the time with the information we had at that time, and then what we know now?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@HomerUK:
Why not imagine, if you will, a place where pies grow on trees? Your hypothetical European state would have common borders with other European states so what happened there would be of immediate and pressing interest to its neighbors. The populace of your state would not already suspect that the US was after their oil or their religion.
In sum, your analogy discards all of the actual complexities that make intervention in Syria problematic so as to reduce intervention to a binary choice. That’s way too reminiscent of the rationales for going into Iraq for me..
balconesfault
@Sly: None of those outcomes are made more or less likely by military intervention.
That’s what I’m thinking. Then the point is … use chemical weapons and we’ll drop a few bombs on you? Those bombs WILL kill some people, and those people will have husbands or wives or kids or moms or dads or cousins, whatever, who will mourn them, and that killing will be DIRECTLY because of what we do, and not simply because some tyrant somewhere has amassed more power than he should.
I’m a big fan of people who want to be free of a tyrant taking all the risks to go all-in to free themselves. I know that’s asking a lot, but barring that, if you accidentally kill some good guys, or even some not-good/not-bad guys during our airstrikes, how moral is that?
piratedan
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: btw, welcome back Higgs hope you’re doing better.
fuckwit
@Omnes Omnibus: And that is where it belongs. Good. I want Blue Helmets in there. If we don’t have an international community that can come together to enforce moral guidelines like not using chemical weapons, then we don’t have an international community at all.
Do you see a sign outside that says “world police”? No? And do you know why you don’t see a sign outside that says “world police”? Because policing the world ain’t my fucking business!
Omnes Omnibus
@TAPX486: Do you think that chemical weapons were not used? That the US government is lying about their use? I don’t. I don’t think that a military intervention is the best response, but I don’t think that the Administration is bullshitting the public in order to pursue neo-con dreams.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@piratedan:
Thank you. I’m doing much, much, better, thanks to the kind heart of MaryG.
Belafon
@fuckwit: You know, I bet the Republicans oppose it because Obama’s going to get white people killed so he can save his Muslim brethren.
mapaghimagsik
@Butch:
As opposed to all those nice, pretty photos of other casualties. If it weren’t for chemical weapons, war would look like reruns of honey boo boo.
Anoniminous
Let’s look back to the Millennium Challenge 2002 war game for a strategy.
If Assad knows he’s going to be attacked, and (possible, though doubtful) lose his chemical weapon capability the “winning response” is fire the suckers off. Then what does the US do? Break out the B-52s? Invade? – how and to protect and/or stop what? International sanctions? (Yeah, those have worked REAL good.)
And, BTW, the Syrians have Russian anti-ship missiles:
The clear result from, again, the Millennium Challenge 2002 war game is once a nation knows it is going to be attacked the best option is to use everything in their arsenal before their Command and Control and logistic capabilities are destroyed, making it impossible to use the weapons in their arsenal. Is the US prepared to risk losing the 6th fleet?
Iran is saying they will get involved if Syria is attacked. The Iranians have war-gamed fighting off a US naval attack. And are [Foreign Policy blog, no link]:
Is the US prepared to risk losing the 5th fleet and other military assets in the Middle East as well?
Is the US prepared for an influx of fighters from Pakistan into Afghanistan as push-back for attacking a Muslim country?
Is the US prepared for an all-out conventional war in the Middle East? That’s what is being risked.
I have no idea if any of this will happen. All I’m saying is it could and blithely depending on them not happening is a violation of US basic Military Intelligence protocol of analyzing based on capability, not intention.
Suffern ACE
@Butch: what an exit strategy would look like.
O.K. we haven’t even become embroiled and you already want an exit strategy? Our exit strategy is that we fire missiles from far away and if they hit their targets, we aim somewhere else.
What we don’t have right now is any authorization from the UN to intervene for humanitarian reasons, and that group has the final decision. I have not seen anything that indicates that Obama is going to act without the UN. And that is probably not going to happen. The West jumped the humanitarian intervention shark with Libya by hunting down and killing Khadaffi. I very much doubt that China or Russia is going to agree to it this time.
The pressure should be on Russia to find a new home for Assad. But why should they? He isn’t losing.
magurakurin
@Omnes Omnibus: In fact the UN is now saying that they too are sure that some chemical substance was used. The UN investigators are also now speculating that it might have been Assad’s brother, Maher, that gave the order. There are a lot of issues at hand here and a lot of arguments to be made for and against, but the folks who just keep on with “they are lying just like Condi and Powell,” really aren’t adding much to the debate on either side.
HomerUK
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: You talk about complexities but utterly fail to mention that other co-religious countries bordering Syria have asked the US/UK to act. There is no/little oil in Syria and no-one seriously thinks that any military strike is going to have any benefit to the US/UK in terms of oil (it will probably increase oil prices, though). Note, I am not in favour of any military action really but as I have said before, they are all bad choices. It just galls me to hear people who are so blithely anti-war make rationalisations that would work just as well with respect any issue in a European state (when we all know that the world would not stand by and let that happen). I am all for nuance and complexity and I believe that President Obama is too, but arguments such as “it’s just oil” lack neither. finally, the world is a much smaller place than it was 50 or 100 years ago so legitimately it can be said that what happens in ‘far – away’ lands has a direct effect on other countries (indeed, one of the reasons why teh Europeans were so keen to intervene in Libya was the potentiall influx of millions of refugees into Europe)
Belafon
@mapaghimagsik: Did you read this comment?
Sly
@balconesfault:
That really isn’t the point. There is a terrible calculus in military conflict. Picking who dies and who doesn’t isn’t supposed to be a moral one or a noble one, but you’re still making that choice whether you intervene or not.
Hence, “No easy answer, all options are shitty.”
And it also needs to be said that Syria wouldn’t be such a fucking mess if untold thousands of Iraqi refugees hadn’t been forced to flee across the border over the past decade. But that’s what happens when you try to find easy answers.
HomerUK
@amk: Please to show a link?
amk
@HomerUK: Her twitter TL.
https://twitter.com/AmbassadorPower
Lotsa hyperbole from an UN amby.
cleek
perhaps, instead of focusing on the innumerable ways things could go wrong for us in Syria, we could answer the complementary question: what could go right?
personally, i don’t think anything can go right.
killing or otherwise removing Assad would probably lead to a situation like the Iraqis are dealing with right now. what situation? the situation where they’ve had a decade of civil war and ham-fisted nationbuilding. ex. 75 or so killed today. or … Libya.
hurting Assad but leaving him in a position to continue his attack on his own people accomplishes nothing.
and both of those will unquestionably enrage the world.
and not doing anything ensures more of the same, but that “same” includes not inflaming the situation.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@amk: Where’s teh hyperbole?
Belafon
@cleek: And what’s a chemical treaty ban worth if no one enforces it?
Suffern ACE
And again, I am going to guess that what is going to happen isn’t an air strike or whatever, but that we will change the type of weapons that we are funnelling to the rebels. Perhaps sending in “Syrian-maybe, but most likely they’re from some other country” “advisors” who may be better than the rebels at taking out artillery positions. We aren’t going to get permission to use our armed forces their. I don’t see what we can offer the Russians to get them to change their minds. Saudi Arabia offering to fix oil prices is probably not going to work.
fuckwit
As for Ambassador Powers, she’s the ambassador to the UN! Of course she’s hyping this up! She needs to get the UN off of its dead ass and into action on this. I fully expect her to be ramping up the hyperbole daily, until the UN does something. I do not think her hype is meant for domestic consumption, nor should it be used for that purpose. She’s doing her job: working the UN and trying to get them to take action.
HomerUK
@amk: Yeah, you see, I thought you must have meant something else. All I can see is that she says initially, UN must go in “if true” and “perps” must face justice. Then says images are heartbraking. I guess, you can point to her “verdict is clear” tweet but that was yesterday and that seemed like the administration line. Believe it or believe it not, that appears to be what the intelligence says. But what your earlier comment was about was whether she could be an honest broker in terms of discussing all the ways things could go wrong. There is nothing in her tweets to suggest that she would not be. Also, not the only person PBO would listen to. I seem to remember we all liked Chuck Hagel partly because he was against war in Iran. We all liked PBO because he wanted to (and has/is) wind down the wars not of his making. My only point was you can agree or disagree with whatever action is taken (if any) but to pre-emptively decide that PBO isn’t going to have any honest opinions is the real hyperbole here. also, btw, Dempsey has specifically written before that he doesn’t think that involvement in Syria is a good idea so I would imagine there is no shortage of people within the WH and Congress who are telling PBO that involvement is not the way to go.
aimai
@TAPX486: This must be ted and hellen again. Isn’t he the only person ever mentions this unintersting non story about the imaginary Kerry face lift?
Southern Beale
@balconesfault:
If she were black, and the daughter of a famous rapper or black pop star, Fox Noise would be blasting this 24/7, mulling about “what’s wrong with rap culture” and “the breakdown of African American families.”
But she’s Alan Jackson’s daughter so, crickets.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@HomerUK:
Although you raise some good points I remain unconvinced that any good will come of military intervention. I am reasonably convinced that if the Assad government falls his opponents will turn to fighting among themselves for control of Syria or at least for whatever parts of it they hold. If, as you say, Syria’s neighbors want someone to intervene then they need to act in concert and do the intervening. We and the Russians have armed those countries to the teeth so I’m confident that they have the gear to accomplish their goals in Syria.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
also, while I’m against missiles in a no-good-option situation, could we stop with the facile comparisons to Iraq? I haven’t heard anyone in the Obama administration say Assad is a threat, much less an existential one, to the United States. No one is talking about invading, regime change (we seem to be silently against that, in fact), or liberating the Syrian people to allow the flowering of democracy, I haven’t heard anyone say the road to Jerusalem runs through Damascus, or people talking about chemical weapons used in the streets of New York or Peoria.
jayackroyd
WE WILL NOT BE MOCKED.
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-obama-dilemma-20130828,4290748,7039944.story
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Forget it, Jake; it’s Chinatown.
amk
@HomerUK: sam power has a history of foot in mouth disease. Didn’t she had to step away from obama campaign in 2004 due to some intemperate remark about hillary? Frankly, all her tweets about syria seem to me like the typical left wing blogger’s poutragegasm, not a responsible UN ambassador. ymmv.
boatboy_srq
it’s all a matter of that goes on the national credit card. Killing overseas? Check. Saving lives at home? ‘We’re broke.”
@MikeJ: Too, too true. These are not winnable situations. Abstain, and let millions die; invade, and face criticism for supporting any faction, and deliver ugly consequences both there and at home; or bomb, and p!ss off everyone. Trouble is, all the Very Serious People seem to get their precious fee-fees way too easily hurt when some hitherto-unconsidered group whines about how nasty the US is on the global stage and how with all the US’ immeasurable wealth it can’t find ways to help people. Helping people, preventing atrocities, &c. is something the US does very, very badly, and winds up causing resentment all over the place – but doing nothing isn’t any prettier.
ellie
@Patricia Kayden: Thank you. That is the first thing I thought of.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@Anoniminous:
Is Iran prepared to have a glowing, glassy crater where Tehran used to be?
cleek
@Belafon:
is bombing the only way to enforce it ?
if so, why haven’t we bombed North Korea?
magurakurin
@cleek: North Korea used chemical weapons?
Seanly
Our troops shouldn’t be used to settle internal disputes or unresolved daddy issues. It’s terrible that there are places with ethnic cleansing & internecine warfare and that non-combatants are killed but it isn’t our place to be the world’s police.
We fought Fascism & won and got a big head over it. Then we turned our attention to Communism and got Korea & Viet Nam. Now we’re charged with cleaing up Random Dictator That Isreal Doesn’t Care For This Month.
I say we stay home.
mai naem
Fuck these greenroom assholes. When they want to donate their income to this 24/7 warmongering and when they want to sacrifice their kids’ and grandkids’ lives to the war effort, then I say go. Otherwise they need to STFU. So here’s my message to the kids and grandkids of Max Boot, Bill Kristol, Joe Lieberman, Krauthammer, Cheney, Kagan,Goldfarb,Libby, Elliot Cohen,Gerson etc. etc. suit up and get ready for boot camp,
balconesfault
@Southern Beale: I was thinking more that … had she been black, the chances of threatening moves being responded to with deadly force would have been much higher.
cleek
@magurakurin:
they built and used nuclear weapons (on their mountains, but still)
[ and, yeah, i guess NK was a bad example, since they demonstrate that non-military solutions sometimes don’t work. ]
MomSense
I love Putin in all of this. Right after the attack he was saying it was the rebels and now he is denying the attack ever took place.
OGLiberal
But then there’s this from a recent Q-poll:
“Forty-nine percent of Americans backed strikes by cruise missiles and drones that don’t risk U.S. lives, the poll found, with 38 percent opposed. The poll, which was conducted in late June and early July, did not ask whether Americans would support manned air strikes.”
http://swampland.time.com/2013/08/27/new-poll-shows-more-americans-support-syrian-air-strikes-than-oppose/
Sure, no skin in the game, no good, white, Americans get hurt…bombs away!
Patricia Kayden
@Cacti: Neither is good. I am just wondering why when Black Africans slaughter each other by the thousands, the US doesn’t even pretend to want to get involved, yet everything that happens in the Middle East requires consideration and discussion.
Patricia Kayden
@aimai: AMEN! I still want to hear from the Obama administration what’s the next move after Syrian targets are hit. I don’t see what a few strikes are going to accomplish. There is no way that President Obama is going to put boots on the grounds, so leave Syria alone.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
when?
joes527
@Jockey Full of Malbec:
That would be quite the humanitarian triumph!
Jockey Full of Malbec
@joes527:
Good thing the Mullahs have a strong sense of self-preservation, then, and won’t be giving any incredibly stupid orders like “Destroy the 5th Fleet!”
Patricia Kayden
@lamh36: “Ok serious question how many people oppose most interventions in the Middle East or Africa cause the blahs are killing each other anyway so let em.”
As a “blah” myself, that has nothing to do with my opposition to the US getting involved in wars in the Middle East. And let’s keep it real, the US doesn’t get involved in African wars, i.e., Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Congo, Rwanda.
Doug Mayer
Umm, maybe someone has already made this point, but it would be nice if the media orgs were a little bit clearer on this issue of intervention in Syria. Most Americans strongly oppose military intervention – the US has already, and continues to intervene on the side of the rebels with humanitarian aid and (more than likely) small arms. But hey, our opinion doesn’t matter as John, Doug, and SteveM have stated.
NobodySpecial
Simple. Give everyone who wants to fight this war one of our surplus guns and a connecting flight to Damascus.
Tell em get happy.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Comrade Jake:
Just to be clear… we’re going to launch an airstrike on Syria for humanitarian reasons? That sounds about right.
I’m sure the relatives of the men, women and children killed in such a humanitarian way will appreciate it. Good thing there’s absolutely no way they will ever be able to express any ill feelings towards the US.
And let’s be clear – I might even support an intervention in Syria IF it met the just war criteria – and the primary one I’m thinking of is a reasonable chance of achieving a peaceful goal. Lobbing a few missiles in as a sop to feelings of impotence isn’t such a goal.
sparrow
@HomerUK: well, the Europe thing has happened. Or does no one remember that Turkey is illegally occupying part of Cyprus and the US jammed the Greek air force to help it happen?
fuckwit
@Patricia Kayden: Um, because there’s no AIPAC of Africa?