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samusaran253

2011 Syrian Protests

Should the US get involved in Syria?  

30 members have voted

  1. 1. Should the US get involved in Syria?

    • Yes, full blown ground assault
      2
    • Yes, no-fly zone
      0
    • Yes, trade embargo
      2
    • Yes, other
      0
    • No
      26


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So basically Syria is the next Libya. There's a civil war forming there, and it isn't very civil. The Syrian government has fired upon Syrian protestors and it's getting bloodier by the hour. What do you think will happen in Syria? Will this spark a civil war? Who do you support, the government or the protestors? Do you think the United States should intervene, like we did with Libya, and if so, how should we intervene? If you want, please try to keep all discussions and news articles about the Syrian protests in this thread.

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Syria sends army reinforcements into Deraa

The Syrian army has sent more tanks and reinforcements into Deraa as part of a widening crackdown against opponents of the government, and sporadic explosions are being heard in the flashpoint southern city, witnesses say.

Witnesses said a convoy of about 30 tanks were seen on the circular highway outside the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Wednesday.

Troops have been deployed since Monday in Deraa - where the uprising began more than five weeks ago - and activists said more gunfire could be heard on Wednesday.

A resident of Deraa, speaking under the condition of anonymity for his own safety, said that security forces had taken over the town hospital, and were shooting at anyone who approached the building.

"Snipers are on top of all the buildings in Deraa and there are lots of bodies on the streets," the man said in a phone interview. "They were left on the street for three days and we couldn't remove them."

Troops had sealed off the town, and were searching homes at night.

Read more: http://aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/04/2011427142619235903.html

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samusaran253 said:

Do you think the United States should intervene, like we did with Libya, and if so, how should we intervene?

it was britan and france that dragged usa into intervening in libya, please don't be so us-centric again. also i think the scandalous hypocrisy of the western countries regarding bahrain protests and their bloody silencing gives us (all of us, not just united states) no right to butt into syria just because their regime didn't play ball like the dictators of bahrain did.

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samusaran253 said:

Should the US get involved in Syria?

No, the West should keep the fuck out. It's got nothing to do with us.

Would we welcome a Syrian strike force arriving on our doorsteps to prevent us squashing a rebellion in our own country (and only when the goals of the rebellion suited Syria)?

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No, we're involved in enough countries as it is...doing this would only further stretch the current military numbers thinner and strain them.

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No. All America needs is another war/ conflict of any kind.

However, I would not be surprised to see america go and get its self involved, anyway. Its not worth sending people to, unless it does happen to get worse somehow.

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samusaran253 said:

There's a civil war forming there, and it isn't very civil.

Civil wars never are.

Technician said:

The country may replace it's current rulers but it'll still be an Islamic-run society.

Oddly enough, most "Islamic" states are run as western-style secular dictatorships/despotisms. With protesters tending to use their local mosques as rallying points there's probably a widely held fear in Washington (and elsewhere) that the current push for regime change in the Middle East and North Africa will lead to theocracy instead of democracy.

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We put enough money into the military as it is. No I wouldn't like to see us intervene in anymore damn conflicts. I honestly don't know enough about what the Syrian protester's idea of a good government is to choose a side. Not saying that their government doesn't suck now, but bad government replaced with a different kind of bad government would be a pretty pointless rebellion (as many rebellions are.)

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I seriously would like to know if people like samusaran253 would agree to foreign intervention in the US in case that the American people's civil liberties are being oppressed. And I mean US-style intervention, with collateral damage, 'shake and bake', 'shock and awe' and all, since you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, right?

GreyGhost said:

there's probably a widely held fear in Washington (and elsewhere) that the current push for regime change in the Middle East and North Africa will lead to theocracy instead of democracy.


Threads like these make me think that some people (*cough cough* samusaran253 but also others *cough cough*) would not be pleased until all the world is reduced to nothing more than an USA protectorate, preferably with its Syrian Republican Party, Egyptian Republican Party, Libyan Born-Again Christian Conservative Republican Party, donut-eating policemen, etc, or at least reduced into a haphazard a collection of wannabe-pro USA little poor countries that will breed your next generation of wannabe, asshole-licking Green-card holders and think of the USA as the best thing ever (e.g. Albania, Costa Rica, Mexico, Colombia, 'New Europe' etc. ...).

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If the US does intervene, it should be with a special condition: we send out a ship full of politicians, armed with regular infantry weapons (M16, M60, grenades, mortars...)

Hell, we'll even throw in some Federal Reserve and bankers as a bonus!

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hex11 said:

If the US does intervene, it should be with a special condition: we send out a ship full of politicians, armed with regular infantry weapons (M16, M60, grenades, mortars...)

Hell, we'll even throw in some Federal Reserve and bankers as a bonus!


Now, that shit would be the motherfucking ass (Y)

I'd take it one step further, and re-introduce conscription in the USA, including missions abroad. Then I'd like to see how many of the self-proclaimed pro-democracy war-hawks would be able and willing to put up with the heel-clicking discipline at some boot camp, being treated like dirt by their own enlisted "colleagues", and being just banged around the world after being taken off their day jobs with their debts running etc. to "bring democracy" (and possibly catch a bullet/some flak in the process).

My bet? They would all draft-dodge and flee to Canada the very next day.

So, I call for an option "Only if samusaran253 and similar minded people get drafted for the occasion and put in very demeaning and dangerous roles, with the treatment of 1800s conscripts and clicking their heels all day even to the lowliest corporal". Then we are talking ;-)

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The US should not intervene. Has Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc taught you anything?

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hex11 said:

If the US does intervene, it should be with a special condition: we send out a ship full of politicians, armed with regular infantry weapons (M16, M60, grenades, mortars...)

Hell, we'll even throw in some Federal Reserve and bankers as a bonus!

The Congressional 71st! FUND IT!

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hex11 said:

If the US does intervene, it should be with a special condition: we send out a ship full of politicians, armed with regular infantry weapons (M16, M60, grenades, mortars...)

Hell, we'll even throw in some Federal Reserve and bankers as a bonus!


The US Military is totally volunteer and most people sign up right now because they want to go do stuff like this. This is a much more sympathetic and honest plea when our army doesn't consist of professional soldiers

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Maes said:

I'd take it one step further, and re-introduce conscription in the USA


I think the current recruiting tactic is having the military partner with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, lol. http://mmapayout.com/2010/02/the-growing-usmc-ufc-partnership/
Notice how the main commercials when watching UFC are: military, and first person shooter games (and shake weights lol)
Of course lulz happen when the marines realize that UFC is a male modeling homosexual reality show which contradicts their homosexual conduct policy.

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Ralphis said:

This is a much more sympathetic and honest plea when our army doesn't consist of professional soldiers


Yet, this doesn't stop some people from "supporting our troops" or protesting about their "condition". I seldom see a similar concern for e.g. cops, which also belong into a military-like system, have to fight violent crime, and are a 100% volunteer, professional force. Yet none ever said "take our law enforcement-employed sons and daughters off those dangerous streets!".

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http://tinyurl.com/3o9knxr

U.S. says Gaddafi troops raping, issued Viagra: envoys
ReutersBy Louis Charbonneau | Reuters – 1 hour 57 minutes ago

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.S. envoy to the United Nations told the Security Council on Thursday that troops loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi were increasingly engaging in sexual violence and some had been issued the impotency drug Viagra, diplomats said.

Several U.N. diplomats who attended a closed-door Security Council meeting on Libya told Reuters that U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice raised the Viagra issue in the context increasing reports of sexual violence by Gaddafi's troops.

"Rice raised that in the meeting but no one responded," a diplomat said on condition of anonymity. The allegation was first reported by a British newspaper.

Pfizer Inc's drug Viagra is used to treat impotence.

If it is true that Gaddafi's troops are being issued Viagra, diplomats said, it could indicate that they are being encouraged by their commanders to engage in rape to terrorize the population in areas that have supported the rebels.

The use of rape as a weapon during wartime has received increasing attention at the United Nations. Last year, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed a special envoy on sexual violence during armed conflict, Margot Wallstrom.

Earlier this month, Wallstrom chided the Security Council for failing to mention sexual violence in two recent resolutions on Libya, despite having made the subject a priority.

Wallstrom said at the time that reports of rape in Libya remained unconfirmed but cited the highly publicized case of Eman al-Obaidi, the woman who burst into a journalists' hotel in Tripoli last month saying she had been raped by pro-government militiamen.

The International Criminal Court is already investigating whether Gaddafi's government committed war crimes in its violent crackdown against demonstrators who demanded greater freedoms. The crackdown sparked a rebellion that has turned into a civil war.

The U.S. mission to the United Nations declined to comment.

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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CraversTavern said:

The us shouldn't get involved in yet another country. Just like every other time, the situation will become even messier than a pair of hairy nipples.

The government had no plans of simply "assisting" Iran or Iraq. That was just a news coverage title. They planned for this long grind from the start.

Also, I never understood people's view of the military as a money absorbing sponge, seeing as the biggest sum of money circulated is in soldier/contractor's wages. The millitary does burn large sums of money but most of the economies issues are with people's overwhelming debt and ridiculous inflation.

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Ralphis said:

The US Military is totally volunteer and most people sign up right now because they want to go do stuff like this. This is a much more sympathetic and honest plea when our army doesn't consist of professional soldiers


I was thinking more along the lines that it would help prevent gratuitous military spending, esp. long drawn out campaigns like Iraq. If the politicians & their wealthy friends actually have to go spend time in "the shit", they'd actually have to think really hard before going down that path. Right now, they just attend a bunch of meetings and allocate money that doesn't exist (well the Fed will just print more...) The recent long campaigns like Iraq have cost a ton of taxpayer money, and despite Obama's mantra of "change", there's still no end in sight.

Of course, none of this would fly, because the man who makes the rules doesn't make any that don't benefit him.

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hex11 said:

I was thinking more along the lines that it would help prevent gratuitous military spending, esp. long drawn out campaigns like Iraq.


Unfortunately, it doesn't, for a variety of reasons.

hex11 said:

If the politicians & their wealthy friends actually have to go spend time in "the shit", they'd actually have to think really hard before going down that path.


It would be ace if there was some law and/or code of honor that would force them to do so, but in practice the results would be very different.

Take a practical example from a country (Greece) that still has conscription: the very institution of conscription is a breeding ground for political favoritism, elitism and perpetuating provincial economic and micro-politic interests (certain communities rely on conscription as the sole viable option to keep their local businesses profitable, and oppose any abolishment of conscription, or even downsizing the number of camps).

Furthermore, the sons of even moderately powerful politicians/businessmen/anybody with the right connections will be totally exempt or serve in "champagne" units and branches of the army, so it's VERY unlikely that the son of anyone moderately influential would even be "caught in the shit" himself.

Then again the constitution prevents using conscripts in foreign missions (with the non-stated exception of Cyprus), so in practice we have a mixed conscript-enlisted system, which is further fertile ground for political favoritism, pork barrel spending, etc.

@Technician: at least in Greece the situation you describe is reversed. The majority of expenditures go to equipment (we're talking several billions of Eur for a single submarine or fighter jet, with prices inflated by speculation and intermediaries), while the salaries of all commisioned officers, NCOs, enlisted etc. are about 3.6 bn Eur per year total.

Unfortunately the army, with its being effectively a closed society is an ideal breeding ground for pork barrel spending, speculation, political campaigning, favoritisms, etc.

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hex11 said:

If the US does intervene, it should be with a special condition: we send out a ship full of politicians, armed with regular infantry weapons (M16, M60, grenades, mortars...)

A guy at my work is very much of the opinion that, if our country (UK) was run by people who had lived through WWII and seen active service (as, of course, it has been in the past) there is no way we would have gone in to half of the theatres of war that we are currently involved in. He believes, however, that our current slew of young career politicians are far more casual about sending other people into combat.

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Enjay said:

He believes, however, that our current slew of young career politicians are far more casual about sending other people into combat.


Well, strictly speaking, those "other people" you're talking about are also 100% volunteer professionals that receive regular wages to do just that. They can't refuse anymore than a policeman or fireman can refuse to do their jobs (and all of that is also contractually stated, black on white, and signed).

The moral and acceptance dilemmas posed by a 100% professional army, is why Socialist and Communist parties only maintain(ed) large conscripted forces, and had no hesitation to use them for foreign intervention too: the Army, according to their general doctrine and political ideology, must be a Force from the People, for the People (and loyal to the Party, ofc).

Professionals are too much of a grey zone, even if you artificially make the mercenary/enlisted volunteer distinction, and their allegiance, motivation and deployability is questionable at best, and only quantifiable in strictly job performance terms. Try to sprinkle them with "patriotism", "ideals" etc. and you will fail miserably.

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