I've heard Syria is attacking it's own populous, and we're planning on sending troops. How do you feel about this action?

Obama said "No boots on the ground". So we will just be sending Tomahawks. :)

Attacking Syria would be such a bonehead move. We need to stop pretending* to be the world police. We still haven't finished up the last 2 wars we fought... and the way they are turning out are not very favorable to us.

Even some hardcore right-wing propaganda machines (like Bill O'Reilly) have admitted that the Iraq war was a mistake... and he never admits anything we do (under a Republican administration) is a mistake.

In the wake of the Iraq war, most of the oil is being sold to China, not to the US. Particularly because China sent support to Iraq in the forms of finance and rebuilding.

Starting a 3rd war with Syria would just be doing the same thing over again.

As a nation, we cannot keep spending billions of dollars and losing thousands of lives to forcibly dismantle governments we don't agree with. It's not a good long term strategy. It's not even a good short term strategy.

On top of that, the American public is sick of wars. 2 major wars per decade is enough, thanks. Any president that decides to attack Syria is going to drive a stake right through their parties' chance at winning the next election.


_{* I say "pretend" because the human rights thing is not why we do it. If we were really concerned about attacking places where human rights were being violated, we would be all over central Africa. Not only are conditions much worse there, but it'd also be an easier war for us to win. So that's not why we do it... that's just the 'excuse' we use to do it}



EDIT: Also I don't know if you've heard... but America attacks its own people too. Maybe not on the same scale, but it's perfectly legal for US citizens to be indefinitely detained without trial if they're considered an "enemy combatant" (which, considering there doesn't have to be a trial to prove they are an enemy combatant, pretty much means anyone). And don't get me started on the drone strike fiasco.

We need to get our own 'human rights' shit together before we start trying to "liberate" other countries.

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3v99i2/

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/web05/2011/11/21/8/enhanced-buzz-28693-1321883132-9.jpg

Just to put a few... EDIT: Of course, very few cases in America result in death. However, being detained is somewhat a bigger deal. I remember a big issue awhile back about a kid being put to jail for several years with a bail of $500,000... for making a joke about terrorism on Facebook (where someone then reported him).

Why is bombing them even going to do any thing constructive for anyone, that and its usually civilians that get killed in these campaigns, war usualy gets a country out of debt and leaders like to look strong.

Boots on the ground or tomahawks is only good news for people who make money out of the military industrial complex...wait arent they also the most powerful people in the planet?


EDIT: dumdum bullets are illegal by the geneva convention and prohibited by yhe UN acts of some kind, although our police are allowed to use them.

I just find it funny how nobody BUT Obama and his administration thinks the Syrian government did anything /shrug

An attack would be illegal without the security council approval. He would be, once again, establishing that his administration is Bush 2.0. Fucking right leaning moderate.

Wait a second obama is a right leaning moderate? That is the first I've ever heard that lol.

As for this topic don't really got anything to say since Disch pretty much said what I think about it. Other then it is probably the stupidest thing in the world to attack them specially since they and Iran have already stated that they will attack Israel if we do and then it turns into a disaster.

Grab the popcorn, for what is possibly the beginning of World War 3!

Iran are not going to attack Israel. Iran has a considerably larger army and would really leave Israel no choice but to use nuclear weapons. Does Iran want to see Tehran have a nuke dropped on it? There is even possibility of it being a limited international incident for Israel, since Tehran is surrounded by mountains, which might keep a lot of the radiation in. I don't see the Iran/Israel thing ever kicking off...

As for Syria, Obama looks like he wants to send in some missiles. I think purely to discourage the use of chemical weapons. If that is the reason, then it's hard to argue with. Let's face it, chemical weapons cause huge amounts of unpredictable and civilian casualties and no-one wants to see them being used as a regular weapon of war. A few missiles is not going to turn the tide of war in Syria, but it might just discourage usage of a certain class of weapon, which the world would be better off without.

I had to look up the conflict on wikipedia to get a sense of what is going on. Assad is no good guy, but it seams that the rebels are not particularly friendly either.

Jabhat al-Nusra Main article: Jabhat al-Nusra The al-Nusra Front, being the biggest jihadist group in Syria, is often considered to be the most aggressive and violent part of the opposition.[356] Being responsible for over 50 suicide bombings, including several deadly explosions in Damascus in 2011 and 2012, it is recognized as a terrorist organization by Syrian government and was designated as such by United States in December 2012.[60] In April 2013, the leader of the Islamic state of Iraq released an audio statement announcing that Jabhat al-Nusra is its branch in Syria.[357] The leader of Al Nusra, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, said that the group will not merge with the Islamic state of Iraq, but still maintain allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda.[358] The relationship between the Front and the indigenous Syrian opposition is tense, even though Jabhat al-Nusra has fought alongside the FSA in several battles. The Mujahideen's strict religious views and willingness to impose sharia law disturbed many Syrians.[359] Some rebel commanders have accused foreign jihadists of "stealing the revolution", robbing Syrian factories and displaying religious intolerance.[360] Jabhat al-Nusra has been accused of mistreating religious and ethnic minorities since their formation.[361] The estimated manpower of Jabhat al-Nusra is approximately 6,000–10,000 people, including many foreign fighters.[362

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#Political_groups_involved_in_the_conflict

The group is generally described as being made up of Sunni Islamist Jihadists. Its goal is to overthrow the Assad government and to create a Pan-Islamic state under sharia law and aims to reinstate the Islamic Caliphate.[19] It encourages all Syrians to take part in the war against the Syrian government.[20]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Nusra_Front


And the Free Syrian Army have their own set of war crimes allegations as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Syrian_Army#War_crimes_allegations

This looks very messy. You could imagine that a media blitz could probably successfully convince us that we should attack the rebels if they had that agenda.

If the rebels win, it might not be long before we have to go to war with them.

As for Syria, Obama looks like he wants to send in some missiles. I think purely to discourage the use of chemical weapons. If that is the reason, then it's hard to argue with.

That logic simply does not work. All it does is demonize us in a region whose opinion of us is already less than stellar.

The middle-east has been war-torn for centuries. Us swooping in and dropping a few bombs is not going to suddenly make them realize they should stop. It's just going to accelerate the conflict.

I mean really.... turn this around for a minute. If the US government was doing something shitty to its people, and then England or someone decided to respond by bombing DC.... would you be glad they did it? Of course not... you'd just be like "oh great... now we have to deal with that too. Wtf are they doing bombing us when we already have enough to deal with".

If we really want to send a message, the way to do it is with economic sanctions. But we'd have to get China and Russia on board with that for it to do any good... and it's doubtful that they'll agree.

Another option if we want to do something more forceful is to arm and aid the people so they can stand up to the government on their own, rather than fighting the government for them. But that is extremely difficult to do effectively. We tried it several times in the past... didn't work so well. Usually the people we arm end up being the new extremists.

A few missiles is not going to turn the tide of war in Syria, but it might just discourage usage of a certain class of weapon,

I just don't see how you are making that connection. Can you elaborate?

@Disch

However how to stop dictator Asad who has war aginst his people?

However how to stop dictator Asad who has war aginst his people?

Why is it our responsibility to stop him? And do his people even want us to be involved? Another question is would you rather have a dictator like Asad or Extremist Rebels that are tied to groups like Al-Qaeda in power?

There really is no win situation in this civil war and there is no reason that we should get involved and make it into something even bigger and even worse.

Although I have no doubt that the US will go with the Tomahawk option, I think some kind of ABS would be effective in preventing the use of chemical weapons, even if it only makes delivery more inconvenient. Think something like Israel's Iron Dome, setup in some centralized NATO "DMZ" fortress just to plink away at any ballistic missiles that happen to fly by. This may be overkill since it's expensive and only addresses the one potential delivery system, but unfortunately the correct solution to this problem, i.e. The Star Wars Project, isn't an option anymore (Thanks Russia!).

Wait a second obama is a right leaning moderate? That is the first I've ever heard that lol.

The entirety of our two party system has taken a huge shift to the right over the last 20 years. He's faked left gone right for 5, going on 6 years now. He and a very large amount of democrat elected officials are closer to right leaning moderates from 20 years ago than the right leaning moderates today (Who are in turn more socially conservative than those 20 years prior)

Why is the Star Wars project not an option??

People go to prison in america on terrorism chargers for making jokes on their Facebook statuses yet the US government doesn't mind arming the terrorists directly.

Its another proof that the terrorism thing isn't genuine.

If we didn't have to pay for it it would almost be humorous how people fail again and again to learn from the past. Hitler failed to learn from Napoleon and invaded Russia only to get destroyed once winter set in. How many times now have we gotten involved in the middle east only to have it come back to haunt us? Especially with Osama bin Laden, who was at one point a rebel that we armed and trained ourselves. Getting involved in Syria now would be such a dumb ass move, just look at the 1980's and on.

@Zereo Another question is would you rather have a dictator like Asad or Extremist Rebels that are tied to groups like Al-Qaeda in power?

I do not understand why I should select between Asad and Al-Qaeda? Your approach is principally false. With this ideology we would live in slave-owning system till now.