A Possible 'Syrian War'

[WinePusher]

The United States believes that Assad used chemical weapons on civilians. This has led many in the public to believe that the United States will intervene militarily in Syria.

1) Should the United States be involved at all in Syria? If so, why and to what extent?

[Nickman]

The United States believes that Assad used chemical weapons on civilians. This has led many in the public to believe that the United States will intervene militarily in Syria.

1) Should the United States be involved at all in Syria? If so, why and to what extent?

I don't think we should. The majority of Americans are against it according to the latest polls.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/0 ... 61639.html

The government should listen to its people that it represents.

[Nickman]

I came across a funny propaganda ad the other day. It is so true.

[Dantalion]

[Replying to Nickman]

So the use of chemical weapons against civilians should just be classified under 'not cool bro, but don't mind us' ?

[99percentatheism]

N

The United States believes that Assad used chemical weapons on civilians. This has led many in the public to believe that the United States will intervene militarily in Syria.

1) Should the United States be involved at all in Syria? If so, why and to what extent?

No

[WinePusher]

Syria agrees to give up it's chemical weapons arsenal and accepts a Russian led 'peace deal.

The Syrian government Tuesday appeared poised to accept the Russian proposal for Syria to hand over chemical weapons amid a flurry of diplomatic maneuverings around the world. http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013 ... s-ban?lite

The problem is that Syria already used chemical weapons and this deal does nothing to punish Syria for it's previous actions.

[Nickman]

[Replying to Nickman]

So the use of chemical weapons against civilians should just be classified under 'not cool bro, but don't mind us' ?

What do you think is in regular weapons? Magic? They have chemicals too. Just not the same ones. Besides we do not know who used them. John Kerry says we do, but the Asad interview seemed to finally tell us his side of the issue. He is fighting terrorists. My favorite line that he said was, "My worst fear is that Syria's secular government will be no more if we don't fight."

I am in the military and definitely against going to Syria. It is a bad idea. You think that the middle east hates us now, just wait til we bomb Syria. We are not the Policia Mundo. The majority of US citizens are against actions against Syria. It is time for our government to listen to its people.

[Nickman]

Here is for everyone who has not seen the Asad interview. Tell me how you feel after watching this level headed man talk about the situation from his side.

[youtube][/youtube]

[Darias]

According to the 'forum rules' I don't have to prove you wrong or show why your claims are invalid. You should be grateful I haven't been posting things like 'I challenge you to show you speak truth in this regard. 1st challenge.'

I am technically breaking rule 16, but I'm essentially forced to point this out because I see no need to bring moderators into this debate.

You are claiming that my argument is invalid, despite the fact it was well sourced. Your dismissive claim has nothing to back it up or to challenge my evidence. I don't appreciate having something I have put research and time into written off as "conspiratorial" over and over again, as if the repetition of that claim proved anything. Show me why I'm wrong and you are right. Nature and nature's god isn't going to do it for you, so stop acting like your claim doesn't warrant explanation or support. If on the other hand you are simply offering opinion, I shouldn't have to remind you that this sub-forum is in the debate category, where facts matter and unsupported opinions are an irrelevant waste of everyone's time.

5. Support your assertions/arguments with evidence. Do not persist in making a claim without supporting it. All unsupported claims can be challenged for supporting evidence. Opinions require no support, but they should not be considered as valid to any argument, nor will they be considered as legitimate support for any claim.

But yes, you have insinuated absurd things that I write off as conspiracy theories. Didn't you suggest that rebels used sarin gas? Don't you also believe that the rebels may be framing Assad with this chemical weapons attack? Don't you also believe that the United States has some sinister ulterior motive and doesn't really care about the usage of chemical weapons? Where's the proof? I've been following this story pretty closely and I have seen none.

It's not common knowledge that the Syrian rebels deployed nerve gas.

1. I didn't suggest anything. As reported by mainstream new sources, the UN investigation and the Turkish arrest report did -- which I cited in post Post 17 on page 2, and again in point 3 of post 41 on page 5.

2. I don't know if this most recent attack was caused by the rebels, but I do know that according to US officials and those within the "intelligence community" of the state do not have a smoking gun. No evidence linking Assad to this recent attack has been presented, only claims. In fact, the White House most recently claimed that common sense is good enough. I don't know about your common sense, but my common sense tells me that it would make perfect sense for rebels who are loosing a civil war and who are desperate for foreign intervention to use sarin if they had it. But I never claimed that they did do it. I have no idea who did it. I'm certainly not going to favor a war on Syria on an assumption that Assad ordered the attack for craps and giggles -- an attack that has resulted in only a fraction of the number of casualties caused by conventional war against the rebels.

3. I never claimed that the United States has evil intentions. I actually don't view the world like a comic book full of super villains and super heroes. It's certainly likely that many politicians favoring this war favor it not only because they get more money from defense contractors, but also because they truly do care about the plight of the Syrian rebels. As anyone knows the best of intentions pave the road to hell. Must I cite the enormous cost to human life and wealth that resulted from the well intended humanitarian escapade into Iraq?

US foreign policy is not guided by altruistic motives, angelic intent, holy quests, or prime directives. US foreign policy is guided by short-term state interests, and self-interested politicians whose careers and political credibility are on the line. This is a world that operates by self interested people. There's nothing inherently evil about that, and such tendencies can be used to do a lot of good. When political power and special interests join hands with such incentives... well it's like what happens when Nero shakes hands with Peter.

4. Policymakers no doubt see a humanitarian crisis as an opportunity to gain public support for intervention grounded in state interests not humanitarian benevolence. The idea to topple Saddam's regime had been in place for quite some time, according to CIA director George Tenet, as reported by the Washington Post. The tragedy of 9/11, caused by Osama and company, garnered a lot of American support for vengeance -- any old brown Muslim would do... didn't matter if Saddam was connected to 9/11 or not (he wasn't). This presented the US with a great opportunity to advance its own interests in the region, which included power projection, restoring dollar backed oil sales, and establishing a friendly state in the region to offset Iranian influence (which, not surprisingly, turned out to be friendly towards Iran and not quite the pliable democracy it was cracked up to be). If public support did not matter, why would the State Department have waited until a chemical attack, given so many have already died?

5. As for the sources I cited concerning the UN's findings and the Turkish Arrest report... apart from Reuters, guess who else reported it? The Washington Times, CS Monitor, the BBC, Slate, etc. Mainstream enough for you? Apparently, you haven't been following this close enough. You can't let Hannity do your research for you. Just because you are uninformed doesn't mean the facts don't exist.

WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the first Gulf War, the liberation of Iraq, etc. It's interesting how we only seem to intervene in regions that are already suffering from brutality and oppression.

So let me get this straight, in a debate over the motives behind foreign policy and enforcing red lines on chemical weapons use, you're going to cite WWII, Vietnam, and the wars in Iraq as evidence in your favor? Seriously? In WWII, the US used Napalm on civilians. It also nuked Japan because the Japanese wanted to keep their emperor.

Are you serious? In WWII, you had a German psychopath named Adolf Hitler rounding up Jewish people and throwing them into furnaces, gas chambers and concentration camps. In WWII, you had Japan preemptively strike Pearl Harbor. Had the United States not intervened militarily the world would be a much sadder place. And yes, at the time there were probably many people like you who just wanted to stay out of it and mind our own business. Well, turns out you were on the wrong side of history. And we nuked Japan because we felt it was the quickest way to end the war. This is a debatable point among historians, but we didn't simply nuke Japan for the sake of nuking them.

In Vietnam, a war started via a false flag attack --the Gulf of Tonkin incident (no, not conspiracy, but a part of history actually admitted by the NSA) -- the US used tons of chemicals on civilian populations.

Our goal was not to go in and kill as many Vietnamese people as possible, our goal was to prevent Communism from spreading. Yes, Gulf of Tonkin was a false flag. That much is true. But it really has no relevance to the point I'm making, which is that there was noble intent behind the US intervention in Vietnam.

The US supported sanctions against Iraq, sanctions that caused the deaths of 100s of thousands of children (Source). In Iraq, the US used radioactive depleted uranium (Source).

Stop spinning. Why did the US support sanctions against Iraq? Was it because the US wanted little children to starve and die? Of course not. It was because the US wanted to put pressure on a fascist dictator who was already killing thousands of children.

And you actually expect me to believe the state department cares about human lives, in what universe exactly?

And you actually expect me to believe that the United States is this evil, civilian burning, child killing nation you're trying to make it out to be? All the examples you've brought up so far are moot.

The disconnect with reality results when one's worldview labels any and all facts that failed to make their way onto one of Bill O'Reilly's talking points from 2002 as "conspiracy theories."

Guess what, everything you've been saying coincides with what the conspiracy theorists are saying. Do you get your talking points from the desk of Alex Jones and Jesse Ventura cause it sure seems like it? No one in the media, whether it be cable news or print, affirms your stance. Oh, but let me guess, you believe that the media is lying to us (another conspiracy theory).

Why do you think the United States wants to get involved with Syria?

No one has proposed a full scale invasion of Syria, and only a few people have proposed that we actively assist the Syrian rebels through funding and training. I personally would not support such an effort to aid and arm the rebels in Syria. However, I do support limited and targeted airstrikes to punish and deter Assad from using chemical weapons. Think about the precedent we are setting if we allow a dictator to use chemical weapons without any retribution.

No one proposed a decade long commitment in Iraq either. That war, according to Rumsfeld, was supposed to be done with in a few weeks. The law of unintended consequences proves that one thing leads to another.

Bush proposed sending in ground troops from the very beginning. Obama has not said such a thing. I would not support such a policy. I do support limited airstrikes on chemical weapons facilities and I cannot believe that you disapprove of something so minor and beneficial.

The author of a study from the Institute for the Study of War (founded in support of the Iraq War), which was cited by McCain as support for a strike in Syria, has questioned the purpose of a limited strike as a response to a chemical weapons attack:

Harmer doubted that any surgical strikes would produce the desired results -- especially if the goal is to punish the Assad regime for its alleged use of chemical weapons.

"Punitive action is the dumbest of all actions," he said. "The Assad regime has shown an incredible capacity to endure pain and I don't think we have the stomach to deploy enough punitive action that would serve as a deterrent."

He also doubted the effectiveness of taking out Assad's chemical weapons capabilities. "If we start picking off chemical weapons targets in Syria, the logical response is if any weapons are left in the warehouses, he's going to start dispersing them among his forces if he hasn't already," he continued. "So you're too late to the fight."

Please, this guys doesn't even know what he's talking about. He is not in the military, he is not in the intelligence community. He does not know the strategic locations in Syria that the military plans on striking, he doesn't know where Assad is relocating his chemical weapons, or whether or not he is even moving them at all.

And you're right, everyone should seriously consider the message that is being sent when the US, having used chemical weapons in the past (in Vietnam and Iraq just to name a few), condemns and responds to chemical attacks by rival proxies -- while excusing and lying about it when their allies do the same thing (e.g. when the State Department blamed Iran for Iraq's gassing of the Kurds).

False equivalency. The United States does not arbitrarily gas it's own innocent citizens with impunity. And the United States used nerve gas in Vietnam and Iraq? Sorry, I'm unfamiliar with this. Agent orange isn't a deadly WMD on the same level as sarin gas.

The United States has fought oppressive regimes and ideologies ranging from Nazism to Communism. And now the United States is fighting Islamic terrorism. The pattern of behavior on the part of America is pretty obvious to anyone who is not blinded by conspiracy theories. Whenever a brutal and oppressive regime/ideology rises up and begins to spread, America has always been there to fight it. Yes, the way the United States has gone about fighting oppression has sometimes been flawed. But the principle behind American intervention is noble nonetheless.

In our past discussions, I have brought up examples of US foreign policy not bound by "noble notions" during the Cold War, during WWII, and even Iraq. You dismissed my points as being a part of the distant past. You dismissed those examples by claiming that the US was just fighting a "greater evil" and it didn't matter what its allies were. The fact is that the trend of US foreign policy is short sighted state interest only, with no regard to life or liberty of those who fail to ally with it. You may pass off example after example as a rare case of flawed deviation from the "course of freedom making that the US has always been walking." But where you see the occasional failing, I see a predictable trend.

1) You have brought up the fact that the United States propped up many of the current Islamic regimes we are now fighting against. I countered by saying that this was true in WWII, where we allied ourselves with Stalin to fight a greater evil, Hitler. The fact that we strategically pick sides in order to deal with the greatest threat occurring at that particular time means nothing. Let me ask you, why do you think the United States once supported Saddam Hussein in the distant past? Was it all part of some grand scheme?

2) I pretty much dealt with all your examples above, from WWII to Iraq. If the United States intent is not noble, if it isn't the United States goal to spread freedom and democracy, then what is it? If the United States goal isn't to deter Syria from using more chemical weapons, then what is it? Give me your personal opinion.[/quote]

[Philbert]

Assad has no side worth listening to.

All these dictators all around the world can be compared to Ted Bundy taking over an entire country.

They're all murderous psychopaths like Bundy, but they're more intelligent and ambitious than Bundy was. They have a bigger vision than merely terrorizing people one at a time.

As example, I heard a story on NPR a few days ago about Gaddafi in Libya. It's now known that he had a harem of sex slaves in the basement of his palace.

Gaddafi would lead tours of schools, supposedly doing an "inspection of the educational system" etc. What he was really doing on these trips was picking out girls to add to his harem. When he saw one he liked, his goons would pick her and put her in the sex slave cellar.

Sadly, these girls now have no where to return to, as their culture rejects them as damaged goods.

Not all the dictators are sexual psychopaths, most of them are power psychopaths. The end result is pretty much the same for the people they have power over. The secret police, the torture chambers etc etc.

The appropriate response to Ted Bundy and all such psychopathic criminals large and small is to set the swat team in to blow their brains out.

Regrettably, we in the free world have become fat, lazy and complacent, and we're willing to let the psychopaths live among us so long as they aren't bothering us personally. Most of the world sits on it's butt waiting for America to do something, and then when we do they whine and call us war mongers etc. If we don't do anything then they complain about that. It's a pathetic routine.

The secret weapon of all these dictators is their ability to leverage the evil inside of us. It's our own selfishness, self absorption, rationalizations etc which gives the psychopaths the room they need to do their thing.

Imagine that Ted Bundy took over a home, and then a neighborhood, then a city, and then a nation. And so we gave Ted Bundy a seat at the U.N. and ran his speeches on CNN. That's how much sense our relationship with these psychopaths makes. We completely buy their story that they are respectable people who should be interviewed by Charlie Rose.

Europe is as large and rich as North America. Europe can afford to field forces just as impressive as the American military. Imagine two armies with the power of American forces.

If such American and European forces worked together, we could wipe the entire middle east free of these murderous psychopaths in just a few months.

Our European friends will probably now complain about the reckless American cowboy mindset with a great deal of moralizing fantasy superiority etc etc but...

They were happy to have us invade Europe when it was Europeans that needed liberating from the murderous psychopaths.

[Dantalion]

[Replying to Nickman]

I agree, and it seems that unlike your previous leader, this one actually takes into account how the international community is reacting atm.

But just a quick point, you can't really compare a bullet to an indiscriminating gas cloud. There's a reason the use of chemical weapons in warfare is an absolute no-go.
Not saying killing civilians is ever acceptable, but something as vile, unpredictable and indiscriminate as a chemical attack is completely different from firing a mortar on a specified target.