Talk Of Strike On Syria Moves From 'Will It Happen?' To When

[Blademaster]

France only joins so they can gather elint on US systems. Personally, can we please just tell everyone on the other side of the Atlantic other than the UK to just fuck off an die and leave us alone?

ok then don't ask anyone else for help and stew in your own bravado. You sound like Anil with such comments.

[zraver]

ok then don't ask anyone else for help and stew in your own bravado. You sound like Anil with such comments.

America is broke, our military is worn out, our economy is in shambles, our nation divided politically, our laws ignored by the ruling class.... America needs a timeout. We've carried the weight of global security for decades and that bill is now past due. Syria doesn't matter to the US, not even a little bit.

[tankie]

Putin has more fun th,,,,,,,oops wrong thread :whome:

Putin Orders Massive Strike Against Saudi Arabia If West Attacks Syria | EUTimes.net

[TopHatter]

Putin has more fun th,,,,,,,oops wrong thread :whome:

Putin Orders Massive Strike Against Saudi Arabia If West Attacks Syria | EUTimes.net

Is that website...serious? I mean, is it a parody website in the style of The Onion?

[zraver]

Is that website...serious? I mean, is it a parody website in the style of The Onion?

Looks like a eurotrash version of a stormfront zine.....

[citanon]

America is broke, our military is worn out, our economy is in shambles, our nation divided politically, our laws ignored by the ruling class.... America needs a timeout. We've carried the weight of global security for decades and that bill is now past due. Syria doesn't matter to the US, not even a little bit.

Z,

We've almost always been broke. We've almost always been worn out. Our economy has been in shambles about half the time forever. Our laws have always been ignored by the ruling class (remember when Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus or the Alien and Sedition acts?), our leaders have foolishly meddled in world affairs for far too long (remember the Monroe doctrine?), and we've been going downhill like this since 1776. With any luck our state of ruin will continue for another 250 years.

Seriously, one has to put this in perspective. Send a few Tomahawks their way. How much do you think that will cost us per person? About $10? I spent more than that on lunch and junk food today.

For my $10 our enemies will continue grinding each other to dust, our allies will not get themselves into trouble they can't handle, we'll hopefully contain this god damn NBC mess at below hell on earth threshold, buy enough time to unf*** this cluster****, and hopefully take another incremental step on the long campaign to pluck Iran of her nuclear feathers.

Not to be crass, but that's money I'm willing to spend.

Oh wait, that did come off as crass didn't it? Sorry it's just my inner Nixon coming out after 4 hours of caffeine fueled programming binge, or maybe it was my inner Putin.

[zraver]

Z,

We've almost always been broke. We've almost always been worn out. Our economy has been in shambles about half the time forever. Our laws have always been ignored by the ruling class (remember when Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus or the Alien and Sedition acts?), our leaders have foolishly meddled in world affairs for far too long (remember the Monroe doctrine?), and we've been going downhill like this since 1776. With any luck our state of ruin will continue for another 250 years.

Uhm right now for the firs time in our history our standard of living is declining.... America has been at war now for almost exactly 12 year. Its time to take a break if we want to make it another 50 years. We have frayed the social fabric and need to reweave it.

Seriously, one has to put this in perspective. Send a few Tomahawks their way. How much do you think that will cost us per person? About $10? I spent more than that on lunch and junk food today.

For my $10 our enemies will continue grinding each other to dust, our allies will not get themselves into trouble they can't handle, we'll hopefully contain this god damn NBC mess at below hell on earth threshold, buy enough time to unf*** this cluster****, and hopefully take another incremental step on the long campaign to pluck Iran of her nuclear feathers.

What will your $10 buy you if Al Queda wins?

Not to be crass, but that's money I'm willing to spend.

Not to be crass but Assad is doing our dirty work... he is giving the Jihadis a place to go and die. if Assad falls you are going to watch a brutal civil war get worse as it becomes a full fledged religios fight. Somalia redux.... The Druze and Christians are so screwed if Assad loses. Lebanon is already teetering and now the Kurds are girding up thanks to the jihadis.

Oh wait, that did come off as crass didn't it? Sorry it's just my inner Nixon coming out after 4 hours of caffeine fueled programming binge, or maybe it was my inner Putin.

lol

[Parihaka]

You say the Brits would do it?

In my considered opinion, the entire reason US military ventures can sometimes become quagmires is because they don't indulge in cups of tea, nor as far as I can tell lie downs. Naps. Siestas. Tea and a quick snooze is the foundation stone of any worthwhile civilisation, especially if it's at elevenses.

[Parihaka]

Is that website...serious? I mean, is it a parody website in the style of The Onion?

Well, there have been several versions of Bandar and Putins conversation, all reinforcing the notion of Europe becoming a Russian pond energy wise while he also happened to mention Chechen terrorists and the winter games in the same breath. The idea of Putin conducting and all out attack against Saudi Arabia though? No......

[JAD_333]

Heard on the block: "Great! When does the show begin?"

So Assad loses his air force; his 3CI; his rolling stock; and a slew of buildings. But he still has his CW. If fact, that's about all he has. He has nothing to lose. What will he do?

Asty posted a thoughtful article from Slate that suggests a good pounding by the US will force Assad to negotiate with the rebels. Of course, no one knows how the rebels would respond.

One outcome of bombing Assad not mentioned anywhere yet is the lift it would give the rebels' morale and recruitment.

[Aryajet]

Powell 2?

Dok,
Not really. The 2 cases look totally different from each other.

Couple of yeas before the start of OIF Saddam claimed his arsenal was all dismantled and let the whole world witness, but in Assad's case we have got close to 350 fresh dead and over 3000 hospitalized while he is still sitting on top of his remaining stockpile. How do you draw comparison?

[Parihaka]

As world prepares to act on Syria, Russia scrambles to apply brake
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By Fred Weir | 08/27/13

Russia feels blindsided by what it perceives as a senseless Western rush to take military action against Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told an "emergency" press conference in Moscow today.

Officials should not act before the facts about last week's alleged nerve gas attack near Damascus have been verified, he said, warning that if Western "hysteria" leads to military intervention, it will produce wider destabilization in the Middle East, and intensify the bloodshed in Syria.

Lavrov made clear, as he has in the past, that Russia has neither the capability nor the desire to take any direct action to help Mr. Assad, even if the Kremlin does sincerely doubt that the Syrian regime is responsible for the attack.

But the foreign minister did suggest that there could be dire consequences for the already-troubled US-Russia relationship.

"We have no plans to go to war [over this], but we hope that others will think carefully about their own long-term interests," he said.

Although Lavrov said nothing new, there was a discernibly fresh tone of diplomatic desperation that suggests Moscow has lost hope that a US-led military intervention in Syria can be forestalled, and is now preparing for a changed world in which there will no longer be even a semblance of US-Russian cooperation on Middle Eastern issues like the jointly brokered Geneva peace conference to bring together both sides in the Syrian conflict.

On Monday the Moscow air was thick with suspicion and recrimination, topped off with passionate warnings that the West may ignore lessons of recent history at its peril.

"The message is that if the US launches a military intervention into Syria's civil war, Russia will be as negative as possible," says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a leading Moscow-based foreign policy journal. "Russia won't try to stop it, but will do nothing to help legitimize it," he says.

That differs from previous episodes, such as the 1999 Kosovo war, which is now being cited as a possible precedent for US action against Syria. Russia opposed the 78-day war against its ally Serbia, but eventually played a key diplomatic role in convincing Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic to capitulate.

It also suggests the West will face a very different Moscow than it did during NATO's intervention in Libya two years ago, where Russia abstained on a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force to protect civilian lives.

"There is a general perception here that any Western-led action in Syria will turn into another long-running mess, and there will be no turning to Moscow for diplomatic help in solving it this time," says Mr. Lukyanov.

"Indeed, this might have the effect of drawing Russia closer to Iran. Moscow may find ways, through different channels, to support Iran, knowing that Iran will never stop helping Assad," he adds.

Lavrov argued that the growing conviction in the US that Assad is guilty of using chemical weapons is regarded in Moscow as a rush-to-judgement that smacks of the same sort of folly that led to disastrous US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past decade, and the more recent NATO intervention in Libya.

"Look at what's happening in Libya today. The central government does not control vast areas of the country, while the militants have taken their weapons and spread unrest around the region, to places such as Mali, where they have fortunately been rebuffed," Lavrov said.

"Look what's happening in Iraq. Hundreds are killed every day by terrorist attacks. Nothing has been solved there," he said.

Lavrov added that he told US counterpart John Kerry in a telephone conversation yesterday that Moscow continues to see no alternative to the Geneva-2 peace conference being prepared by the US and Russia – which would bring representatives of the Assad regime and the rebels face-to-face to hammer out a settlement – and reiterated his belief that the fresh reports of nerve gas use in Syria might be a "prepared provocation" aimed at derailing the planned negotiations.

"Official Washington, London and Paris say they have incontrovertible evidence that the Syrian government is behind the chemical attack in Damascus, but they have not yet presented this evidence. Yet, they keep saying that the ‘red line’ has been crossed," Lavrov said.

"It only works to undermine the Geneva peace process. Now, although there is no proof at all [of Assad's guilt], we see this powerful force being assembled near Syria's borders. They [the West] are readying their ships and planes for an attack…. This is a huge mistake. It will not lead to peace but just to an increase in bloodshed," he said.

Lavrov added that if the US chooses to go to war without an enabling resolution from the UN Security Council – as it did in Kosovo and Iraq – it will be an illegal action that can only stoke the forces of anarchy that are already tearing the Middle East apart.

"To us, it looks as though [George W.] Bush, [Dick] Cheney and [Donald] Rumsfeld never left the White House," says Alexei Pushkov, chair of the State Duma's international affairs committee.

"It's basically the same policy, as if US leaders had learned nothing and forgotten nothing in the past decade. They want to topple foreign leaders they regard as adversaries, without even making the most basic calculations of the consequences. An intervention in Syria will only enlarge the area of instability in the Middle East and expand the scope of terrorist activity. I am at a complete loss to understand what the US thinks it is doing," he says.

[Mihais]

Deduction is all well and good but what is he basing that deduction on? It sounded more like a knee-jerk reaction than a reasoned conclusion.

Neither, IMO. I just found it amusing that their Blessed Obama made the same "black-and-white" mistake.

The Arabs - and the Russians - are going to blame the West, and that usually focuses on the United States.

It should be in Carl's quote of the week,but it suits here as well:''Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false
and knost are uncertain. What one can reasonably ask of an officer is that
he should possess a standard of judgement...He should be guided by the
laws of probability''.
The rebels were caught with the hand in the cookies jar in the past.

About the Arabs,the Sunnis won't blame you.You kill heretics and Christians for them.
The US is mild in this issue.The French and the Brit propaganda has reached new heights of imbecility.So is their eagernes to ''do something''.
Maybe it's a cultural thing.For the likes of me and Dok the default state is to distrust everything coming from above.I assume them to be evil&liars.They need to prove their good intentions.What I noticed in the West is that deep down,people WANT to believe whatever BS they're fed,even if rationally they're aware it's BS.

[Mihais]

Heard on the block: "Great! When does the show begin?"

So Assad loses his air force; his 3CI; his rolling stock; and a slew of buildings. But he still has his CW. If fact, that's about all he has. He has nothing to lose. What will he do?

Asty posted a thoughtful article from Slate that suggests a good pounding by the US will force Assad to negotiate with the rebels. Of course, no one knows how the rebels would respond.

One outcome of bombing Assad not mentioned anywhere yet is the lift it would give the rebels' morale and recruitment.

When the rebels were on a high horse,the implied fate of Assad was a nasty one.Since then,the FSA has become an even more abstract entity.On the ground,the jihadists are the proeminent force and even the so called moderates work with them.One of the reasons I find the idea of arming the moderates to be ridiculous.The weapons will go the jihadists in a heartbeat.That a few intel operatives can control the deals going on a frontline is a case of severe overestimation of human capabilities.
So you have a few exiles in Turkey,calling themselves the Resistence,that will wear suits and ties,talk smoothly at a peace conference,even sign a paper.That paper won't be even good as toilet paper,because hard core muslims don't have use for such infidel inventions.
Whatever pause the jihadists may give themselves under the pretext of armistice or peace,willl be nothing but an operational break.They'll renew the hostilities with a vengeance.

[Minskaya]

Strike on Syria Would Cause One on Israel, Iran Declares
August 27, 2013

Iranian lawmakers and commanders issued stark warnings to the United States and its allies on Tuesday, saying any military strike on Syria would lead to a retaliatory attack on Israel fanned by “the flames of outrage.” Iranian lawmakers and commanders issued stark warnings to the United States and its allies on Tuesday, saying any military strike on Syria would lead to a retaliatory attack on Israel fanned by “the flames of outrage.”

Source: NY Times

Israel is prepared for any Iranian/Hezbollah foolishness.