Nah, but they probably sent tens of millions of dollars in addition to propaganda to help support the Syrian Rebellion.
Kurds? They're first worried about refugees and Syria's chemical weapons. How would a Democratically-elected Syria ally with the U.S.? They'd shift away just like Egypt. The Syrian Rebels are allied with al-Qaeda now, why wouldn't they provide a safe-haven for the organization moving forward if Assad is overthrown? I guess at least we'd have to worry less about Yemen in the long-run
I'd prefer send Lazenby into that trainwreck... at least if he didn't come out it would be no big loss.
United States Military Deploys an Aircraft Carrier, the USS Eisenhower, off the coast of Syria U.S. Senate Overwhelmingly Votes to Pass No-Fly Zone Over Syria President Obama Warns Syria Against Using Chemical Weapons Report: Mortar Shell Strikes Syrian School, Killing 29 Students and a Teacher NATO Votes to Deploy Patriot Missiles to the Turkish Border with Syria
I'm just trying to figure out how all of the above got by the Russians. There is no way in hell that we're going to be that active against a Russian client without them signing off somehow.
Syria supports Russian interests and sending them weapons/supplies is much more of an economic priority for Russia (export growth) than an ideological/political one. Expect Russia to turn on Syria (i.e. just stop supporting them without acknowledgement) once a Western invasion begins
Is that the endgame? An invasion led by the West? It obviously would be much better for US interests for the invasion to be led by somebody other then us.
No fly zone doesn't sound doable unless the Russians have signed off on it. They fly planes in and out of Syria all the time. They have to have signed off on this.
Syrian Rebels Target Damascus International Airport Report: French Military Advisers Meet with Syrian Rebels inside Syria Report from France: NATO Military Intervention in Syria is "Imminent" ........
There's got to be some heavy lifting going on behind the scenes here. There's no way the US can afford to lead an attack on one Russian client in Syria while preparing for another in Iran. It just doesn't work. The Russians will make us pay in ways that we can't even imagine yet if the next year is about taking down their clients in the Middle East.
Can we please not stick our finger in the electrical outlet again? I can't see a "good" outcome out of this. If Assad wins, Iran keeps a client state. If Assad falls, there's loose man portable surface to air missiles (not that there aren't a ton of those already from Libya) as well as potentially loose nerve and blister agents. Oh, and the strongest rebel groups appear to be the ones with the closest ties to terrorist organizations. Yeah, this is going to work out perfectly.
This is the basis of American foreign policy at this point. We meddle endlessly to try to create outcomes that are good for us and in the process we create blowback that is bad for us. Whether we're meddling on the side of stability or revolution we're still meddling and so the blowback is directed at us by whomever feels disadvantaged by our meddling. America tries to get house odds in our favor so that we always make the 3% or whatever on the play. The problem is that the bets keep getting bigger and bigger and the amount of money that we need to spend to cover all the action grows endlessly. The people gambling aren't even gambling at our tables, we're sending the dealer to hover over theirs. The only thing that enables the house to prevail in Vegas is that they can throw everybody out when things get hairy. We don't have those options on the table.
Post-NATO Patriot Missile Deployment next news from Turkey should either be about an influx of Syrian refugees, deployment of U.S. or NATO troops to the Syrian-Turkish Border, or something along the lines of the formal beginning of the invasion. Any action from Syria to/into Turkey would only affect border towns (not Istanbul) and, at this point, likely lead to a swift NATO retaliation.
Which is exactly why we need to stay the F out of this. There is no good outcome for us. Al Qaeda is already in Syria assisting the "Rebels" and Assad is going to at some point probably use chemical weapons which is going to drag us into this on the side of the people who are getting assistance from the people we are at war with. The big difference is that should we help the Rebels and Assad is ousted we'll leave but Al Qaeda and it's influence will remain. Our entire objective in this should be solely on a humanitarian basis and the minute we put boots on the ground we're screwed.
We should ask the UN to move to Geneva and begin to pull our lion's share of the funding for the organization. We should cut the Pentagon budget by a solid 50% to get down to just the amount that the next five highest spenders pay combined. We should setup a committee at the UN to explore a treaty governing the use of assets in international areas focusing specifically on drones and other unmanned weaponry. Basically we should have a US Empire going out of business sale. Once all the dust has settled we should start looking at what makes sense from international and bilateral points of view in terms of the extension of US diplomatic efforts and military assets internationally. No, this is not the Ron Paul point of view although it does share a lot of characteristics with the Pat Buchanon school of thought. We do need to maintain a formidable power base to negotiate from. We just shouldn't have it available as an easily used tool that policy makers inevitably rely on in their calculations. It should be a very hard and costly option to mobilize the wheels of war when we need them. Possible, but not anything that any politician in his right mind would suggest unless there was no other choice. For starters the top tax rate should automatically go to 50% upon the decision by the congress to declare war or any President to authorize foreign intervention in the absence of a formal declaration of war.
Dude. Istanbul is my hometown back in Turkey. Nothing will happen to you. The most that can happen is some border incidents which will be answered by Turkish forces quickly.
I always wondered why you had a Galatassary logo in your avatar. I remember when they had George Hagi... guy was a player.
