I can't agree that we could deter Al Qaeda. I'd much rather have Assad with control of the chemical weapons than Al Qaeda. AQ has already gotten their hands on some Sarin and plans to gas the NATO air base in Turkey. http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/Archives/GSW/201307/Turkey_02.html Assad we can deter, possibly. There's no way in hell we can deter AQ. What would be even worse is if Assad fell and we end up with a Syria that looks like Somalia. North Korea wants us to think they're nuttier than a shithouse rat. They're actually just in it for the money. Nukes in shipping containers don't pay. Nukes that you can use to extort your neighbors, now that's a good racket.
As a veteran of the Armed Forces of the US, I'm opposed to any bombing os Syria. It's long past the time of America being the world's policeman. Apparently Obama hasn't learned anything from BUSH/Cheney about the folly of nation building. If the world doesn't think enough of the situation to approve a military strike, we should take that as a pretty good indicator. Its time to stop saving the world and start saving ourselves. Yeah, I'm a isolationist. The world needs to grow up ang handle its own affairs w/o help from Uncle Sam. I am for arming the rebels. If some of them are ALQ, we deal with them when the time comes. Assad, just like Khadifi, needs to be removed BY HIS OWN PEOPLE, not by the West. Timefor he west to let developing countries grow up. It won't be pretty, but in the long run, we'll be better off.
Deter AQ?.... You kill them like we have been doing with drones and Seals if need be... If we are spending hundreds of billions on defense, I'd like to see it used...
As. An ex Marine, id prefer boots on the ground. Iraq was taken in a week. With minimal loss of life. The casualties in Iraq occurred after the Army became unemployed an undeployed, fueling the insurgent actions. Had those 400 000 men been kept as a force, under the nascent regime, we would have been out in a year, with no need for the surge. Eliminate Assad, eliminate Hezbollah....and throw a huge Monkey wrench into Irans political calculus. Dithering around about Assads (largely inherited from Iraq) chem weapons stockpile, is retarded while Iran is going nuclear. Taking out Assad, and supporting, then installing the FSA, is far less a task than Iraq was.
Even if that was the case,I'm not in favor of the families of 400k having to have their kids be there to stop anyone from goin nuclear,just to protect Israel. Because they cant get one here
The 400k was the number of Iraqis, we dispersed after subjugating the country. And its not about protecting Israel. Ots about a nuke not coming over the canadian or mexican border in the next 20 years, Israel, is just a thorn in Irans side The actual problem, is having North Korea and Iran as rogue states, able to ship off a nuke...and able ro blame each other, A warhead shipped say in an oil tanker from the Mid east, or a cargo contaienr from the far east, could render NY or LA to waste. Foreign policy has to be viewed through the lens of the opening of a chess game. There is never a check mate without war, the goal....and right now, the Chinese, have client that has nukes. Russia, is trying to get there with Iran, do you want to Communist states to have that ability.
I wouldn't believe that for a second. That is just a scare tactic used on everyone to get support resource control. We could do just as much with less damage watching over what is shipped here and controlling our own borders
Not hardly. We have all manner of method of detection in place, but there are, in particular too many ports...and next to no security north of south. Secondarily tolerating Rogue nations, os what lead to " Peace kn our Time" ...IIRC that didnt work too well. And now, fully a third of the worlds population lives under the auspices of 2 communist would be Superpowers. It took 40 years, to bring ONE...halfway down. Now each will have a client state with Nukes. The Chinese are not ready yet, however the Russians still have the armaments,... Thats a war we cant win, without frying half the planet.
As far as scare tactics, the Russians shipped nukes to CUBA. Over East Berlin. Thats before NKorea, and possibly Iran had nukes, amd before the Chinese were trying to assemble a mobile force. Putin, is an old style hard liner. Hes not like the Arabs we depend on with a wink and a smile allowing them to talk tough, but depending on their acqeiesence. Read this. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/22/think_again_chinas_military?page=0,2 But consider...the article only concerns China. Not say, Russia, and China acting in Concert. While we dither around figuring out which Client shipped a nuke. You have to roll back the clients one at a time, so that any aggressive actor is clearly in the open. That is the only responsible path to security,
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/09/09/russia-syria/2785703/ So if this goes through, in the general public: Obama gets to look like he wanted war and to protect America Obama gets to say look I let the democratic process prevail Congress gets to say, see us being against war led to this Kerry gets to say his remark sparked this Syria gets to show they didn't accept an American proposal and stopped attacks Russia gets to say they had the power to back down USA from war So if it makes everyone look good, it's probably not going to happen.
Plan is in motion, Obama's move. Never thought Putin would deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-09-10-07-47-43
I'm as glad as next guy that the Russians stepped up to the plate. Whoever said earlier in this thread that Putin would pull our bacon out of the fire, you deserve props - because I didn't see that coming (edit: Dierking). It comes out smelling like a win for pretty much everyone who has a vote. The problems will come in the implementation. Who knows how much stuff Assad has? Assad and the Russians (maybe). How do we guarantee that everything got swept up? What happens if after the agents have all allegedly been removed we get another chemical attack? Assad can say, "I gave all mine away, it ain't me". I'm very hopeful this works out. The devil's in the details, as they say.
You're wasting valuable time here when you could be spending it thinking about ways to make more money.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/world/middleeast/syrian-chemical-arsenal.html?hp&_r=0 Nothing too much. Just laid out what's going on and that while the Russia deal looks promising, it has to be carried out and there still be repercussions. Kerry's going to meet with his equal from Russia later this week.
I've run into the problem is that there are too many idiots in the labor force... It's so hard to find good employees... I honestly don't know how people are going to retire...Seems like the vast majority of folks are going to work until they drop dead...
We will have to maintain our threat of a strike in order to get the chemical weapons out... It seems like the threat of a strike is the only thing making Assad/Russia act to want to get rid of the threat... I read elsewhere though that those two won't deal until the threat is gone... I guess we will find out... I also wonder if they have some of Iraq's fairy tale WMDs...
