29 replies to this topic

[Mr. Roboto]

If John Kerry’s rhetorically aggressive speech on Syria sounded familiar, perhaps it’s because another secretary of state made similar remarks a decade ago in laying out the case for a U.S. military operation in the Middle East.

On Feb. 5, 2003, Colin Powell–with diagrams, electronic intercepts and satellite photographs in tow—spent two hours telling members of the United Nations Security Council that Iraq was aiding terrorists and concealing weapons of mass destruction.
President George W. Bush’s foreign policy chief said the evidence was “irrefutable and undeniable.” He added, “Clearly Saddam will stop at nothing until something stops him,” and, “with all the information the United States now has, leaving Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction for months or years is not an option–not in a post-Sept. 11 world.”

Powell displayed satellite photos that he said showed “active chemical munitions bunkers” and pictures of facilities that had, he said, been “sanitized” before U.N. inspectors arrived. He showed what he said was an intercept of Iraqi military officers discussing how to hide evidence of banned weapons programs. Not too long after Powell’s speech–on March 20–the U.S. attacked Baghdad with missiles and bombs. U.K and U.S troops moved into Iraq and military operations officially began.

Of course, the retired four-star general’s claims have been proved bogus. Powell has sincecalled that infamous speech a “blot” on his record, adding that it was “devastating” to eventually learn the information he was handed was unreliable.

Fast forward to today: Kerry said the U.S. knows with “high confidence” that a chemical weapons attack was carried out by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against his own people. He said 1,429 people, including 426 children, were killed in the attack earlier this month.
He didn’t have photos and diagrams like Powell, and his speech didn’t last anywhere near as long, either. Kerry released an unclassified intelligence report on the use of chemical weapons in Syria, which said the Assad regime carried out the chemical attack just outside on Damascus, citing sources and communication intercepts. He also pointed to horrific images and video that have surfaced online this week.

Like Powell, Kerry said that inaction would have serious consequences.

“It matters to our security and the security of our allies. It matters to Israel. It matters to our close friends Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, all of whom live just a stiff breeze away from Damascus. It matters to all of them where the Syrian chemical weapons are–and if unchecked they can cause even greater death and destruction to those friends,” he said.

Kerry, aware of the public’s hesitation after a decade of war, repeatedly insisted that Syria is not Iraq 2.0.
“Our intelligence community has carefully reviewed and re-reviewed information regarding this attack. And I will tell you it has done so, more than mindful of the Iraq experience. We will not repeat that moment,” he said.

Of course, the cases are different in many ways. There is no question that Syria possesses chemical weapons–the issue, some say, is whether the regime turned them on its own citizens. Another key difference: no one in the Obama administration is suggesting anything close to the massive ground invasion that Bush launched into Iraq. In fact, the White House has said repeatedly that it has no plans to put boots on the ground. But whether Kerry’s case for Syria becomes the career-tarnishing blot that Powell’s Iraq argument is, history will decide.

[artcinco]

 
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I have such mixed feelings on this. I am totally against any military involvement there. Regardless who is behind the chemical weapons, it is not a direct threat to the US. Brutal dictators and even democratically elected leaders commit horrible acts against their people every day across the globe. It is not our responsibility to intervene when this happens. Certainly not outside a united force of our allies and world leaders. Contrary to what you may think of me, I opposed both Iraq and Afghanistan. But once we had boots on the ground, we had to accomplish the mission. Syria is so unstable, and all of Obama's proxy wars in the Middle East inspired by the so called Arab Spring have made every one of those countries less stable and more antagonistic towards the West. But his "red line in the sand" comment has forced our hand. If we don't do anything, we appear weak and that will be exploited. I'm just so damn scared that even something as simple as a couple cruise missiles will result in retaliation from either Iran or Syria on our troops in that region or Israel. While I don't give two hoots about Israel, a direct attack on them will start World War 3. And while I am glad to have been out of the Army just shy of 2 months, if this happens I'll shave my beard, cut my hair and be back as soon as I can. I think Obama needs to order some kind of strike, but I hope it's to empty shelters in the middle of nowhere, with support from at least our European counterparts and certainly the other Arab nations in the region. If Assad and Iran know that any kind of retaliation will result in their prompt removal from the planet, they'll be much less likely to do so.

[freedom78]

I have such mixed feelings on this. I am totally against any military involvement there. Regardless who is behind the chemical weapons, it is not a direct threat to the US. Brutal dictators and even democratically elected leaders commit horrible acts against their people every day across the globe. It is not our responsibility to intervene when this happens. Certainly not outside a united force of our allies and world leaders. Contrary to what you may think of me, I opposed both Iraq and Afghanistan. But once we had boots on the ground, we had to accomplish the mission. Syria is so unstable, and all of Obama's proxy wars in the Middle East inspired by the so called Arab Spring have made every one of those countries less stable and more antagonistic towards the West. But his "red line in the sand" comment has forced our hand. If we don't do anything, we appear weak and that will be exploited. I'm just so damn scared that even something as simple as a couple cruise missiles will result in retaliation from either Iran or Syria on our troops in that region or Israel. While I don't give two hoots about Israel, a direct attack on them will start World War 3. And while I am glad to have been out of the Army just shy of 2 months, if this happens I'll shave my beard, cut my hair and be back as soon as I can. I think Obama needs to order some kind of strike, but I hope it's to empty shelters in the middle of nowhere, with support from at least our European counterparts and certainly the other Arab nations in the region. If Assad and Iran know that any kind of retaliation will result in their prompt removal from the planet, they'll be much less likely to do so.

I too am torn on the question of Syria. Of the million ways that some are butchered at the hands of others, I have difficulty wrapping my mind around the "why" of chemical or biological weapons being somehow worse than anything else. Surely they are evil weapons, but so many weapons are, especially in the hands of horrible people. To my mind, what matters far more is the intentional targeting of civilian populations (making the distinction between civilians currently in armed rebellion and those who are not...especially children). But, we have done this as well. We often make the call to hit a high value terrorist knowing there will be "collateral damage". And until war became smarter and more precise, civilians and non-military targets were pretty much fair game. Again, it's hard to say what it is that makes one variety of war-making more sinful than another.

It definitely has nothing direct to do with US national security, I agree there, but there is a much greater issue of regional/global/human security to consider. But, again, I think it more likely to create a regional problem if we DO go in than if we do not. To my knowledge, this hasn't spilled over into Israel much at all. And Turkey won't tolerate it spilling over into their country either. The most likely spillover point would be Lebanon and then Iraq. Should it actually spillover then that constitutes a much greater regional security problem. But who would act? The UN can do nothing with Russia and China waving the UNSC veto power in our faces. We could potentially get China to abstain from voting, but I can't see how Russia could be persuaded to do the same. There will be no UN mandate for action, so it would have to be something outside of that legal justification. Were NATO (or at least the US/Britain/France group) ready to go, then that would be good enough. You could get large support from the region, especially from the Saudis and Jordan, but they largely view their role in this as that of Sunni Arab states opposed to Shi'ite Iranian influence. Again, this might make the issue worse. As a matter of principle, we ought not intervene in the civil wars of other countries, save as part of a peacekeeping force. Intervening to oust a government has never gone well for the US. Much of our tepid relationship with Latin America can be traced to US backed coups and revolutions, the coup in Iran certainly hasn't helped things, etc. The only security based reason to intervene in some way would be to deter the seeking of assistance, by the rebels, from other outside groups. Al Qaeda has never been friendly toward the Middle Eastern state leaders and should the rebels somehow win without US/NATO/Saudi backing but with AQ backing, then that might be the worst possible security option. Say what you will of dictators, but they can usually keep their societies on a tight leash. Save the proxy war between Israel and Lebanon a few years back, there has been relatively little contact between Israel and Syria. It's hard to imagine that with an extremist group an arms reach from those in power, post-war.

So, back to the original issue, that question to me is whether the use of chemical weapons against civilians is enough to overcome my otherwise general principle of not taking sides in a civil war. Notably Iraq did much the same thing during the Iran-Iraq war, with no retaliation from the US until much later. And the claim of a weapons program was enough to give cause for war, even when the evidence turned out to be lacking. Strangely enough, the use of force to deter development of WMD in Iraq might very well be the cause for NOT going this time. If nothing else, we can look at the tied hands in Britain and, potentially, the US and say that they are largely tied because of Iraq. That excess of "national security" has limited the ability to pursue security at a future juncture. It has also led to much greater doubt about the evidence of the use of chemical weapons, as if the failure of evidence in one case is somehow linked to the possibility of the same in the other. While I certainly welcome a more questioning public (our blood lust seems at least temporarily sated), I would hate to see us be blindly ignorant when evidence is truly there. This issue is, fundamentally, different than Iraq. The violence is already started, rather than us actually starting a war. The weapons have, supposedly, already been used.

All in all, I do support some action in Syria. War always causes civilian casualties, but that's far different than firing chemical weapons into a suburb.

[Zimbochick]

I thought the proposed action was in response to contravening the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the consequences contained therein?

[Mr. Roboto]

I have mixed feelings, but my initial gut reaction is to stay out of it.

Just as I said prior to Iraq, the ongoing genocide in Africa never seems to get our leaders attention.

[freedom78]

I thought the proposed action was in response to contravening the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the consequences contained therein?

I'm sure it is, but international law is hardly law as we would define it from a domestic perspective. It's rules that are convenient to justify actions when we want to take them and that are ignored when we don't, such as in J's example.

I have mixed feelings, but my initial gut reaction is to stay out of it.

Just as I said prior to Iraq, the ongoing genocide in Africa never seems to get our leaders attention.

Yeah, we have a bit of a hard on for the Middle East.

[Mr. Roboto]

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http://m.washingtonp...f8ef_story.html

[freedom78]

http://m.washingtonp...f8ef_story.html

Yeah, that didn't do anything for me at all, as Samuelson's stuff commonly fails to do. He tends to make blanket statements without backing whilst simultaneously attacking the same. For example, in this piece he encourages debate about the "world's policeman" status (certainly a worthy debate) and then goes on to make an unsupported statement about our interest relative to Iranian nuclear weapons. On top of that, while his point that suffering isn't equally shared (when is it?) is valid, this largely feels like a semantic argument. So we're war frustrated instead of war weary? Whoop-de-fuckin-do. Either way, we can say that a decade of war has led to an American public that is very uncertain about the prospects for using force (compare that to the public that was easily led into a war in Iraq).

[Mr. Roboto]

Thoughts?

*****


Let's be real for one second: President Barack Obama never had any intention for a military intervention in Syria. Every speech calling for United States action, "targeted strikes" or otherwise, every promise that the U.S. will not stand on the sidelines, the turn to Congress for approval — it has all been part of a political stunt. Obama played us good.

Less than a week ago, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that Obama would take executive action and pull the trigger on a missile strike against Syria in retaliation for President Bashar al-Assad's regime's use of chemical weaponry against Syrian rebels and civilians on August 21. Sure, the president kept promising that he had "not made a decision" on military intervention. But at the same time, his administration made it clear that there was "no doubt" the Syrian government used chemical weapons against its own citizens, thus crossing the "red line" Obama set a year ago when he said "A red line for us is when start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized." And yet now intervention has been put to Congress and looks like a long shot. Why would Obama go to Congress for approval, when he, despite a few legal qualms, could have pulled off a strike unilaterally — and even did so in Libya two years ago?

During this feigned war mongering, Obama has routinely claimed that U.S. credibility is at stake. In reality, though, the only credibility on the line is his own. Of course Obama doesn't want to invade Syria. It makes no sense for him. It's wildly unpopular with the public (to the tune of a 48% to 29% margin), politically disastrous within his own party, and garnering support from the sort of people the president wants nothing to do with (we're looking at you, Sen. Lindsey Graham). But he couldn't back off his previous stance, and he couldn't appear weak. If there's one thing Obama hates, it's looking weak.

So what does the president do when he wants to save face? First, he does some macho posturing, using phrases like "a danger to [U.S.] national security" and making it clear he's not afraid to go it alone. He calls out the UN Security Council for being, essentially, useless. He sends Secretary of State John Kerry out to present the evidence of a chemical attack and lay down the number of casualties and death toll. He makes everyone really, truly believe the U.S. is set for a strike on Syria.

And then, at the last minute, the president sends the decision to Congress ... where he knows it won't pass. Because the president doesn't want to strike Syria, he just has to pretend he does. This way, Congress takes the heat for doing nothing. At least Obama can say he tried. What does he do to make sure the U.S. stays out of Syria? Obama tanks.

The actions of the Obama administration since August 31, when Obama sent the vote to Congress, have been the actions of an administration throwing the fight. If he was really gunning for military action, he would've done it himself, not send it to a Congress that has been obstructionist since the get-go. Everything Obama has tried to push through has been dead on arrival, so why would this be any different? And let's say Obama did want Congress to pass an authorization of force; he wouldn't meet with the likes of the establishment like Sens. John McCain and Boehner, he'd meet with the ones standing in his way, like Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Mitch McConnell.

And then there is Kerry's performance in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday. Kerry, acting as Obama's surrogate for the hearing, said the one phrase the administration new would send everyone off the handle: "boots on the ground." Granted, he made it pretty clear they wouldn't go that far, but he didn't rule it out either. When you're trying to distance an operation from previous ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, you don't leave "boots on the ground" on the table. That's political suicide and the Obama administration knows it.

Look, they're not dumb enough to send Kerry out there with his head in his hands if they really wanted to get something done. They wouldn't let their most vocal supporter of Syrian intervention, Sen. McCain, get caught playing games on his cellphone. The Obama administration isn't this sloppy, not when it matters. This was an orchestrated botch.

Ezra Klein, for the Washington Post, joked this morning that Obama is tanking on purpose. But it's not a joke. It's almost too obvious at this point. Obama had no intention to strike Syria. He knew he had to appear like he did, and then pin the blame on Congress when the U.S. fails to take action. Which is exactly what he's doing. He's failing beautifully. He's a maestro.

http://www.policymic...ia-you-re-wrong

[artcinco]

This did get his dropping poll numbers, NSA / Snowden, IRS vs. Tea Party and wiretapping journalists off the front page.


#iThing #word

[wedjat]

I've always said Obama is a genius.

[PERM BANNED]

The extent some people will go to keep Obama in a positive light baffles me. Only Obama's most loyal, blind supporters could possibly suspend enough disbelief to believe he orchestrated this. Every outlet and world power knows that Russia (Putin) played the US (Obama) like a fiddle. Obama is neither a genius nor an evil mastermind like Darth Sidious. He's an intelligent and very good politician who has fumbled pretty much every aspect of his foreign policy, and now looks like a dipshit to the world community.

Russia is quickly approaching its Soviet era status again, and Obama gets still gets praise for his moronic zinger at Romney for telling him he's living 30 years in the past.

There is obviously nothing Obama can do to lose support from the dumbest and most deaf in his ranks. He can order the assassination of American citizens, spy on every American and fuck millions out of their health insurance, but there will still be some who stand guard like a loyal dog who forgets his owner kicks him every night.

[artcinco]

Obama's Successful Foreign Failure

http://m.us.wsj.com/...6?mg=reno64-wsj


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