Syria

Sad, but not surprising.

Sad that The Anti-War Party™ is taking the US to war to cover for their petulant man-child president who doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut. A democracy is not supposed to go to war for the ego of one man, but "democracy" has repeatedly failed since the boy-king was crowned.
 
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Wow. The USA has gone to war like...three dozen times over the past 20 years, and you're calling out one president for one thing? Obama's trying to do what he thinks is the right thing but he's also trying to cover his ass about it. He did that in Libya, so what did you think then? What about when Bush's cronies lied to the US public to get congressional approval to attack Iraq? How did you feel when Clinton decided not to go to Rwanda, or during Panama or Grenada? Lebanon? Come the fuck on.
 
King Of Twilight said:
Sad, but not surprising.

Sad that The Anti-War Party™ is taking the US to war to cover for their petulant man-child president who doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut. A democracy is not supposed to go to war for the ego of one man, but "democracy" has repeatedly failed since the boy-king was crowned.
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wut
 
Yea but a lot of them didn't support Iraq/Afghanistan. Buncha hippies.

:p
 
One Democrat didn't support Afghanistan. One. About half of them voted to go to Iraq.
 
LooseCannon said:
Also, did you fail American history? WW1 - Democrat. WW2 - Democrat. Korea - Democrat. Vietnam - major involvement ordered by a Democrat. All Americans love war. It's like the big unifier.
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Yes, I know. That is the irony. But the Democrats are very effective at propaganda.

They sell themselves as The Anti-War Party™ (which is why they get the ™) but they were in the driver's seat of almost every conflict America has been involved in. Don't forget The Mexican-American War, Somalia, Afghanistan & Sudan (1998), Bosnia & Kosovo, Hati, Iraq (Clinton impeachment distraction)...

Nixon inherited Vietnam and ended it, but ask most people taught in the US school system who got us in the Vietnam war, and they'd probably say Nixon!

BTW, all Americans love war when a Democrat is president. Only half do when it's a Republican. Republicans are even "warmongers" when there is no war, while Democrats win Nobel Peace Prizes while they're dropping bombs...
 
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Well, I don't really compare the modern version of the Democrat party to their originators back in 1840. But yes, many modern Democrats are against war...so? Politics changes things. And you'd be hard pressed to argue they're the Anti-War Party when they're pushing for serious intervention against Syria today, anyway. I guess my point is just...so what?

Someone in Syria used gas - NATO is convinced it was Assad. And France and probably the USA are going to do something about it. That's all. There's no law that says Obama has to get congressional authorization - but there's no law that says he doesn't have to. He's inconsistent because he's acting towards something unpopular, but he'd like to have a democratic resolution to do this. I don't think that's a bad thing - the bad thing is that he didn't ask for it in Libya.
 
King Of Twilight said:
Nixon inherited Vietnam and ended it, but ask most people taught in the US school system who got us in the Vietnam war, and they'd probably say Nixon!

BTW, all Americans love war when a Democrat is president. Only half do when it's a Republican. Republicans are even "warmongers" when there is no war, while Democrats win Nobel Peace Prizes while they're dropping bombs...
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The real answer, of course, is Eisenhower/Kennedy/Johnson. Nixon did decide to attack Cambodia, though, so there's that. And yeah, something tells me that most Americans were A-OK with Afghanistan. Maybe if Bush hadn't been telling a series of transparent lies about Iraq more Americans would have approved, eh?
 
Right, _someone_ used gas in Syria, but we don't know who. The Al Qaeda-aligned rebels were caught in Turkey with sarin. Assad also reportedly has sarin.

But it is not the US's job to be the lone policeman in the world - particularly when there is no vital US interest at stake. Atrocities are committed by dictators all the time. Saddam Hussein had a long record of such atrocities, including using gas against the Kurds, but the very same people agitating for war without evidence now said that wasn't enough to justify action in Iraq (when a Republican was president) back then.

One thing you said is for sure - politics changes everything.
 
You've said twice that al-Qaeda is linked to the Syrian rebels. Some of them are, but it's important to remember that there's a massive coalition of rebel groups fighting Assad. Some are Islamist - some are not.

Funny...it's like the USA gave Iraq the gas and considered Iraq an ally at the time. Oh wait - that's exactly what happened. So, just because the USA didn't act then means they shouldn't act now? The USA is a party to the appropriate treaties and has signed off on the UN initiative of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_to_protect]responsibility to protect[/url]. The USA has already acted on this doctrine once - Libya - and in several of its preceding actions (Kosovo, for example). I believe that if you have the ability to stop human rights infractions you also have the moral obligation to do so. Whether or not you did before.
 
The US never gave chemical weapons to Iraq.
Where did you get that wild-eyed conspiracy theory from?
That would have been against the Geneva Protocol.

Lets keep the discussion at least somewhat factually based.
The US shared intel about Iranian troop movements gathered from our spy satellites with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. Iran was much more powerful than Iraq, and it was in the US interest to prevent Iranian domination of the region, after the recent Iranian revolution.

Now in regards of Libya, look at the aftermath of that.
When the US went into Iraq, it was at least with a long-term plan for stability and democratizing the region.

In Libya there was no plan, no commitment to peace-keeping or creating a workable government there, and it has fallen into complete chaos. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...as-but-into-lawlessness-and-ruin-8797041.html

The US involvement has most certainly left Libya off worse than it was, not to mention it resulted in the death of our Ambassador during a bungled gun-running operation.
 
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The USA has already acted on this doctrine once - Libya - and in several of its preceding actions (Kosovo, for example). I believe that if you have the ability to stop human rights infractions you also have the moral obligation to do so. Whether or not you did before.
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Is that just us or everyone else .. what about the rest of the EU, Canada, Japan, etc. Some seem to complain that the US goes things alone, but there are fewer countries willing to do anything about Syria than there was Iraq.

I wonder what people will think if we use the evil drones to take out chemical weapons?
 
King Of Twilight said:
The US never gave chemical weapons to Iraq.
Where did you get that wild-eyed conspiracy theory from?
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No "giving", but still a breach of Geneva Treaty.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...l-weapons-attack-Iran-1988-Ronald-Reagan.html

Anyways, on topic. Russia has released long and technical report about chemical warfare in Syria. Here are some key points :

• the shell used in the incident “does not belong to the standard ammunition of the Syrian army and was crudely according to type and parameters of the rocket-propelled unguided missiles manufactured in the north of Syria by the so-called Bashair al-Nasr brigade”;

• RDX, which is also known as hexogen or cyclonite, was used as the bursting charge for the shell, and it is “not used in standard chemical munitions”;

• soil and shell samples contain “the non-industrially synthesized nerve agent sarin and diisopropylfluorophosphate,” which was “used by Western states for producing chemical weapons during World War II.”

The findings of the report are “extremely specific,” as they mostly consist of scientific and technical data from probes’ analysis, the ministry stressed, adding that this data can “substantially aid” the UN investigation of the incident.
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http://rt.com/news/chemical-aleppo-findings-russia-417/
 
Putin now saying if the US attacks Syria without UN backing, they'll provide Syria with a missile shield.
 
This has been known for a long time but it's one of the first times I've seen it mentioned in as big a media as NY times.A huge part of the reason why there is no good and evil in Syria...

"Much of the concern among American officials has focused on two groups that acknowledge ties to Al Qaeda. These groups — the Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — have attracted foreign jihadis, used terrorist tactics and vowed to create a society in Syria ruled by their severe interpretation of Islamic law."

It's funny that we're fighting them one place in the world and supporting them another...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/05/w...smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=WO_BOS_20130905&_r=0
 
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