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Hellbent

Syria

Should the U.S. stay out of Syria?  

34 members have voted

  1. 1. Should the U.S. stay out of Syria?

    • Yes
      11
    • Yes, this is the same twisting of facts & war mongering we did to go into Iraq
      20
    • No
      3


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We've seen this all before.... :(



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-j-kucinich/syria-war-questions_b_3870763.html

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/1/dennis-kucinich-obama-risks-impeachment-if-he-acts/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

Kucinich also took issue with how Mr. Obama phrased his statement earlier Friday when he said, “I meant what I said, I have not made a final decision.”
Mr. Kucinich argued that “it’s not ‘I, the president’ it’s ‘we the people’” who formed the U.S. Constitution and that it dictates that only Congress can take this country to war.


Echoes of Bush anyone? Holy smokes....

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We need to stay out of a country's business for once, god damnit Obama & co..

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This is obviously bush's fault. /sarcasm

Moron wants to go to war? Let him. Maybe then people will start to see that the government is bad all around.

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What Obama meant is that the international bankers have not decided what to tell him to do yet.

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The topic seems somewhat moot as they're already "in" Syria in some form or another, just like they're infiltrated in every other middle eastern country. If talking specifically about ground troops, then yes, stay out until someone can tell the truth about what the hell is happening there and what America's true motives are for getting involved. If it's just a proxy war against Iran because Syria are their ally, then kindly fuck off. It's not chess and you're not being clever.

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At least Britain has the smart idea by not getting involve with Syria.

Seriously why can't the US government just stop getting into other country's problems and focus on its own.

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DooMAD said:

The topic seems somewhat moot as they're already "in" Syria in some form or another, just like they're infiltrated in every other middle eastern country. If talking specifically about ground troops, then yes, stay out until someone can tell the truth about what the hell is happening there and what America's true motives are for getting involved.

The truths and motives are plain as day.

Commercially:
Qatar and Turkey want to built a pipeline between each other through Syria. Assad has an allegiance with Iran. Iran doesn't want their biggest oil competitor to benefit from a pipeline into Europe. Americas is allied with Arabia, not Iran.

Theologically:
The Sunnis have been trying to conquer the middle east for a great deal of time now, and are winning. Syria is a mixed nation containing both Sunnis, Shiites, and Christians, though mostly Sunni. Sunni extremists are the rebels trying to take over Syria. These are the same kind of people found in Al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, etc.. Iran, one of three Shia majorities, is pretty much the target of the entire Middle East at the moment, sans their friend Syria.

That's it in a nutshell.

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Getting involved in any way means taking a side, and I really don't think there's any way of avoiding that. Backing the rebels means backing al Qaeda-like Islamist extremists, while backing the Assad regime means backing a dictatorship that has shown itself to be violent and unethical. Both sides seem to have used chemical weapons and both have already shown themselves to be deeply unpleasant.

The only good argument for intervening is that not intervening sets a precedent that rogue states can use chemical weapons and get away with it. With international agreement it might therefore be justified to destroy installations owned by the regime, particularly if they're suspected chemical weapons plants. But we shouldn't be under any illusion that doing so is going to help alleviate the suffering of the people there.

We're looking at a sectarian civil war that's likely to go on for years. Better to just completely stay out of it militarily and provide humanitarian aid where possible. Certainly anything involving ground troops or any kind of extended presence in the conflict would be a huge mistake.

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fraggle said:

We're looking at a sectarian civil war that's likely to go on for years. Better to just completely stay out of it militarily and provide humanitarian aid where possible. Certainly anything involving ground troops or any kind of extended presence in the conflict would be a huge mistake.

Sadly, it would have been over long ago if America hadn't been sending the rebels arms.

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fraggle said:

Both sides seem to have used chemical weapons and both have already shown themselves to be deeply unpleasant.


Interesting. I never heard the point of view that both may be guilty of that. As it stands, it's either:

  • Only Assad used them
-OR-
  • Only the rebels used them
, depending on who you ask/believe/side with.

fraggle said:

The only good argument for intervening is that not intervening sets a precedent that rogue states can use chemical weapons and get away with it.


That assumes that use has indeed taken place (a random 30-second video showing some people convulsing in a rather unconvincing manner is not enough of a proof, sorry, especially considering the alleged scale of the attacks) AND that Assad was the one to use them, both quite strong assumptions which necessarily make you -or require you to be- following an agenda.

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Maes said:

That assumes that use has indeed taken place (a random 30-second video showing some people convulsing in a rather unconvincing manner is not enough of a proof, sorry, especially considering the alleged scale of the attacks) AND that Assad was the one to use them, both quite strong assumptions which necessarily make you -or require you to be- following an agenda.

We took out Saddam for less.

Hell, what crime did Gaddafi make?

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Technician said:

Hell, what crime did Gaddafi make?


Nothing worse than what Assad did based on facts, aka waging a conventional civil war against his people. That, alone, has been neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the UN or NATO to take action against a state (or, conversely, supporting a faction). However the media is really trying hard to evoke an emotional international response against Assad based on those vague accusations of "having used chemical weapons".

At least with Saddam there had been some hard facts (and then again, they only used them against him only as a small part of the barrage of "reasons" to depose him, nearly 15 years after those attacks had taken place).

But a dubious video where they probably told some actors to lie down and jerk around? I find the infamous rabbit video much more convincing of the fact that some side has chemical weapons, but it sheds no light on who made the video: it could be fabricated by Turkey, Israel, the USA, made by the Rebels (for self-praise) or Assad as propaganda (to show how wicked the rebels are). The rabbits in this video really convulse, shit themselves and die.

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Maes said:

Interesting. I never heard the point of view that both may be guilty of that.

Actually, it's quite probable. A lot of the chem arsenal fell into the rebels' hands during the initial uprising, that's quite probable. There also were those mobile chem laboratories belonging to sunni rebels discovered just behind the Iraq border. Also one of the first chem attacks in Syria was a massive chlorine poisoning - yanks tried to pin that on Assad as well, but it made even less sense and the rational explanation seems to be that the extremists got to a stash of chemicals when they siezed some water purification plants.

As for Assad, well... he has no reason to use chem weapons now (so the latest attack is probably a provocation by the rebels), but I wouldn't absolve him from the earlier reports either. Especially when he knew he could already blame the rebels as well.

tl;dr: Stay the fuck out of Syria, 'Murca. There's no good solution to this.

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I am not very good at politics but I would like to understand why things like this happen in the Middle-East in the first place. If someone here is Muslim, I apologize but why do they do all this shit in the first place? Why do they hate westerners? I really doubt it's just our hedonism. Did the US screw them somehow?(before sending troops there). If it's that, why are they coming in Europe? What's the deal with all this violence there? Is religion really the culprit or just a convenient scapegoat?

I just hope this won't start a snowball effect like WWI.

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DooM_RO said:

I am not very good at politics but I would like to understand why things like this happen in the Middle-East in the first place. If someone here is Muslim, I apologize but why do they do all this shit in the first place? Why do they hate westerners? I really doubt it's just our hedonism. Did the US screw them somehow?(before sending troops there). If it's that, why are they coming in Europe? What's the deal with all this violence there? Is religion really the culprit or just a convenient scapegoat?

A brief crash course on the current situation in Syria. It's a sectarian civil war, and generally speaking, nothing to do with the US.

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fraggle said:

A brief crash course on the current situation in Syria. It's a sectarian civil war, and generally speaking, nothing to do with the US.

Very good article. Like Egypt, the protests started with just causes but was inevitably hijacked by extremists.

I fear the more secular-minded majority will always be hindered by the loud extremist minority.

EDIT: Also, I had no idea Assad was an Alawite. I can sense his fear from here, being in a Sunni majority nation. Especially after seeing what the Shia are doing to the Sunnis in Iraq post Saddam.

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Alawites could be compared to "normal" or "moderate" Christians in Western nations. Imagine how "well" they would live in a nation with a a majority of not-so-pacifist Amish, Mormon, Quaker or simply trigger-happy, NRA-cardholding Bible Belters. Islam in general doesn't do well with the concept of "moderation" or Islamic law and customs being only applied "halfway".

Actually, the "bad" Sunni muslims don't even need to be an actual numerical majority: their greater determination, activism and willingness to actually fight against "infidels" makes them much more dangerous and influential than the numbers would suggest. A motivated Sunni muslim is worth more than 10 apathetic "moderate" muslims or christians.

That's why every single instance of a "moderate" or "secular" goverment in Arab countries has failed: internal discontent and unrest by the -comparatively more vocal and combative- muslim minorities grew, and that has been used as a leverage by the West. The only modern muslim-majority countries that are stably secular are Turkey, Bosnia and Albania. In all others the shit has hit the fan more than once.

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Maes said:

The only modern muslim-majority countries that are stably secular are Turkey, Bosnia and Albania. In all others the shit has hit the fan more than once.

That may be becasue they were European to start with.

And sadly, it seems Turkey is getting a little less secular by the day. Abdullah Gül is very conservative and wants to stray away from the Europeanization that started after the fall of the Ottoman empire after WWI.

What are you noticing over there, Maes? As a neighbor.

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The poll said
Yes, this is the same twisting of facts & war mongering we did to go into Iraq


Oh no, I'm sure there is a whole different set of lies behind this one.

John Kerry is pissing me off. He has been making the claims not doing anything will hurt our international credibility. Kerry of all people, should know just by running against Bush in 2004 that our international credibility is already shit thanks to Bush.

The unfortunate things is the fuckheads from the right are against it only because Obama is considering it. Given the chance, read: if we had a Republican president, they would be all over going into Syria.

As an American who posts on a board that regularly has people posting from all over the world, I do not want our military touching Syria. Even with a missile from many miles away. There is way too much shit that needs to be fixed within our own borders and I am still paying for Iraq and Afghanistan, I'm tired of funding wars.

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Technician said:

Abdullah Gül is very conservative and wants to stray away from the Europeanization that started after the fall of the Ottoman empire after WWI.

Actually, it's the Prime Minister Recep Erdogan who leads the country. Turkey is one of the European countries with weak presidency, although not as weak as Italy or Germany. Also Turkey is still pro-EU, but their stance changed from "Please have us" to "You'd better let us in", which is actually not surprising, considering European economical woes and Turkeys rapid growth.

It's probably also worth noting that while there's no love lost between Turkey and Assad's Syria, they most certainly don't want Syrian Kurds win their freedom by themselves and give ideas to the Kurd minority in East Turkey.

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DoOmEr4LiFe said:

John Kerry is pissing me off. He has been making the claims not doing anything will hurt our international credibility.


Ah yeah, the "damned if we do, damned if we don't" fallacy. "But it's worse if we don't" is the usual conclusion.

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fraggle said:

The only good argument for intervening is that not intervening sets a precedent that rogue states can use chemical weapons and get away with it. With international agreement it might therefore be justified to destroy installations owned by the regime, particularly if they're suspected chemical weapons plants. But we shouldn't be under any illusion that doing so is going to help alleviate the suffering of the people there.


This. If chemical weapons were used by either side, we need to send a message that we won't tolerate that. Whether that's a military strike or not is a different question. Other than that, we really don't need to go over there. I don't really see why we would need to.

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Hang on.

One minute, America's top military advisor is clearly stating to the media and the President that there are no grounds for America to go to war. This was clearly to preempt the US Government attacking Syria. The next, Syria is using chemical weapons and the US and its allies "must" go to war.

Of course, the UK Government has long been the lapdog of America, desperate to preserve a "special relationship" of unclear benefit to the UK. There is no explanation of how Britain's desperately under-funded, under-manned, under-equipped and under-motivated military forces can battle in Syria when we haven't even got the resources to guarantee a win against sabre-rattling Argentina.

But never mind, let's go against public opinion (again) and the United Nations (again) and fire six missiles to justify the Americans firing six hundred.

Also, I notice that the media, which has been decrying the war against Iraq and mocking the war on terror for a decade*, is berating us for NOT going to war in Syria.

The only way to cure the problems in that area of the world will be to nuke it until nobody is left. I'm not advocating this. You CANNOT foist democracy on those people and "civilise" them by converting them to dress like us, buy iPhones and XBoxes, watch Supernatual and Gray's Anatomy, or give their women anorexia like we do.

DEMOCRACY DOESN'T WORK BECAUSE IT DOESN'T REALLY EXIST. Our Governments will do what they want and, in true X-Files style, create convoluted scenarios to explain their breach of public trust. We KNOW that the USA and UK *will* at some point go to war in Syria. Who among us doesn't believe they will?

*Watch the opening credits to Have I Got News For You on Youtube. Tell me how many times it makes fun of American presidents, then how many times it makes fun of Islamic extremists. Also, the current credits feature a Russian man cutting off the West's oil supply. A RUSSIAN?

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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/world/middleeast/kerry-says-syria-should-hand-over-all-chemical-arms.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

MOSCOW — A seemingly offhand suggestion by Secretary of State John Kerry that Syria could avert an American attack by relinquishing its chemical weapons received an almost immediate welcome from Syria, Russia, the United Nations, a key American ally and even some Republicans on Monday as a possible way to avoid a major international military showdown in the Syria crisis. A White House official said the administration was taking a “hard look” at the idea.

While there was no indication that Mr. Kerry was searching for a political settlement to the Syrian crisis in making his comment, Russia — the Syrian government’s most powerful supporter — seized on it as a way of proposing international control of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.

The reactions appeared to reflect a broad international desire to de-escalate the atmosphere of impending confrontation even as President Obama was lobbying heavily at home to garner Congressional endorsement of a military strike.

Asked at a news conference in London if there were steps the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, could take to avoid an American-led attack, Mr. Kerry said, “Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week — turn it over, all of it, without delay and allow the full and total accounting.” He immediately dismissed the possibility that Mr. Assad would or could comply, saying, “But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done.underlined for emphasis



Why it's more evidence of war mongering: when Kerry said this, he did NOT want, nor expect, that the suggestion would be seized upon. Now he is kicking himself, no doubt.

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Wow, it's actually impressive that he keeps lying and conning all the time, without even mincing it with bits of truth. "Okay I said that, but I didn't mean it, there's a difference!"

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We don't know if he has chemical weapons to handover. Russia should especially see through this.

Unless they'll give Assad some chemicals to turnover.

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It's funny how everybody in the West keeps acting like we wouldn't break out the chemical weapons if we got desperate enough. For some reason we apparently need that extra excuse because starting a civil war isn't bad enough.

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