Obama administration swooshing to war in Syria?

[ewmayer]

Sorry - did I say "War" in the thread title? Silly me - that would require an actual debate and vote by Congress, which would give those unpatriotic peace-hugging commies a soapbox to spout their subversive drivel. Correction: I meant "satanic-evil-fighting surgically precise military intervention with Holy laser-guided munitions possessing submillimeter-level precision and 100% guaranteed to hit only Evil targets" - yes, that sounds much better.

----------

Not that I'm any kind of fan of Assad-the-younger, but he's never given me the impression that he's an idiot. So, knowing full well that the U.S. is itching for an excuse to "intervene militarily" and thus conveniently provide a welcome distraction from domestic spying scandals and Obama's waning popularity, he decides to use chemical weapons in a big way? Riiiiiiiiight... All we're missing is some truly outrageously lurid pro-war propaganda like the infamous Iraq/Kuwait babies-ripped-from-incubators-and-left-to-die pack of lies, as told by a theatrically weeping young women who was allegedly witness to said atrocity and who was only revealed after the war to be none other than the daughter of the then-Kuwaiti-ambassador-to-the-U.S., the latter fact having been carefully covered up at the time to protect the innocent, or something.

No - the most-plausible rationale for U.S. military action I have seen is

Snowden who? Look over here! War! Shiny!

Mish has an excellent roundup of articles on this matter in Is Obama Another Bush Clone? Another Nixon Clone?

I found the snip from the 1946 jail-cell interview with Hermann "der Fettwanst" Göring especially telling:

Oh, [democracy and the alleged 'will of the people'] is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

[firejuggler]

Violence/war is always the easy way.
also , allow me to qiote Isaac Asimov "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by firejuggler

Violence/war is always the easy way.
also , allow me to qiote Isaac Asimov "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

Not to mention, often profitable....

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by firejuggler

Violence/war is always the easy way.
also , allow me to qiote Isaac Asimov "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

So, Assad would have taken that refuge? Once, someone attacks someone that is not fully able to defend themselves, it is generally considered honourable to come to the aid of the victim.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

So, Assad would have taken that refuge? Once, someone attacks someone that is not fully able to defend themselves, it is generally considered honourable to come to the aid of the victim.:

I don't disagree. But tell that to the Russians and Chinese, at least one of whom have allegedly been selling arms to Syria and both have veto votes in the UN Security Counsel....

[TheMawn]

I don't think Obama is rushing toward anything. From what I've heard (my source of news has never done any speculating as far as I can tell; they've only ever retracted things they've said when the "facts" have changed), some armed force, NATO, presumably, is ready to go whenever Obama says so but a spokesperson from Washington said that they're very carefully considering a number of things, including collateral damage and loss of innocent life, and perhaps as or more importantly, will a precision strike accomplish anything? Blowing up the chemical weapons stores would be a good idea, but even then, people unknowingly or forcibly working at those facilities will also die.

One consideration of mine would be this, and I invite any Americans to answer. Would you feel as proudly about the American Revolution if space aliens had come out of the sky and won that war for you? Syria IS undergoing its own revolution, and I think the rest of the world should lend a helping hand, but only to the innocent. Anyone who is harming them should be brought to justice, but to add nine american troops for every one rebel isn't the way to do it.

For one, people (like some who may be lingering here) who think that the Americans are just looking for someone to shoot at will think of this as their "Oooh let's go to war" thing.

For two, this really isn't anyone else's fight. Not between military and rebels, anyway.


I think the OP is a bit ahead of himself claiming that Obama is licking his chops at an opportunity to fight a war...

[cheesehead]

Claiming that Obama is rushing to war (*snort*) ignores that most commentators agree that Obama's been doing everything he can to avoid war.

... unless maybe the OP's definition of war includes every instance of hostile military action, which would trivialize the meaning of "war" ... like "War on Terror" did.

- - -

Congress's gradual (since WW2) abdication of responsibility in granting the President such leniency in directing military action against other countries as he now has, is another matter.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Claiming that Obama is rushing to war (*snort*) ignores that most commentators agree that Obama's been doing everything he can to avoid war.

...For which claim your supporting evidence consists of...? C'mon, Mr. "Nature of Evidence" - show us something to back up your underlined claim, which consists of more than snorty textual sound effects.

[TheMawn]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

...For which claim your supporting evidence consists of...? C'mon, Mr. "Nature of Evidence" - show us something to back up your underlined claim, which consists of more than snorty textual sound effects.

This is akin to me saying that there are 500-foot tall rainbow sheep on the moon who eat cotton candy ladybugs the size of school buses; to which you simply snort and say As If; to which I tell you to stop snorting and give me proof that there are not.

Obama rushing to war is your claim and as such presenting proof is your job. Ja?

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

...For which claim your supporting evidence consists of...?

A reasonable retort ... but as TheMawn points out, you made your evidenceless claim first.

C'mon, Mr. "Nature of Evidence" - show us something to back up your underlined claim, which consists of more than snorty textual sound effects.

As a matter of fact, I heard most of those commentators on radio, so their comments could be termed sound effects. I have no audio recordings of those (although some may actually be available somewhere on-line).

(Furthermore, my "underlined claim" is by no means in the category of sincere substantial claim with which my "Nature of Evidence" was concerned.)

A sincere search for evidence of comments on Obama's approach (or not) to war would probably reveal lots of noise on all sides. One man's rush could be another man's tiptoe.

- - -

Some folks are concerned by signs of a potential larger Mideast conflict.

Roger Boyes cites lessons from history, which I particularly respect:

"Fears of a Larger War in the Middle East"
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/newsmake...9605.html?vp=1

Will the phrase “Guns of August” one day refer not only to the prelude to World War I in 1914 but also to the prelude to a Middle East war in 2013?

That is the ominous question posed by Roger Boyes, the diplomatic editor of the Times of London and a foreign correspondent for the past 35 years.

“The direction of events in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Iran should keep us awake at night. History is taking a dangerous turn,” he writes. “The region certainly cannot sustain two wars — Syria’s bloody insurgency and a near-civil war in Egypt — without wrecking established peace treaties and the normal mechanisms for defusing conflict.”

I sat down with Boyes in our London newsroom. He acknowledged that the conflicts coursing through a half-dozen Middle Eastern countries did not come from a single source, nor did they stem from a single reason.

But he feared the problems were becoming intractable and were spreading across state borders: “the new Sunni assertiveness, the rise of the jihad, the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood not only in Egypt but in every Arab society.”

And Boyes warned that, as in August 1914, the world was not paying enough attention.
“In August 1914 there was a lot of grouse shooting going on. In August 2013, politicians prefer to read doorstopper biographies in Tuscany and Cornwall. Yet the spreading Middle East crisis, its multiple flashpoints, is every bit as ominous as the prelude to war in 1914.”

. . .

- - -

BTW, many of the borders of Mideast countries, which most of us have during our lifetimes probably assumed as long-established by those countries, were in fact drawn only as recently as the aftermath of World War 1 ... by Western powers, not by the inhabitants of those areas.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

[SNIP]

BTW, many of the borders of Mideast countries, which most of us have during our lifetimes probably assumed as long-established by those countries, were in fact drawn only as recently as the aftermath of World War 1 ... by Western powers, not by the inhabitants of those areas.

And therein lies many a conflict. Of course, this leaves aside a change in borders which was engineered at the end of WWII, and has sustained even greater conflict since.