Ok, there is a possibility I may have mixed you and Orion up. But someone posted it. I’m not going to dig through tons of text to find it, but if you didn’t post it, sorry. I know someone was being a smart ass once and posted it.
I would not have drawn a red line like Obama did.
But if I was Obama and I drew this red line and Assad crossed it, I would have bombed his forces…understand?
I’ve got nothing against that. But Obama did nothing but watch thousands die in gas attacks which were not sarin, or VX.
Assad uses Chlorine gas, kills 1,500 civilians after you told him he could not use chemical weapons against civilians…what would you have done? Ignore it like Obama and smh? Take a stab at it…
1,500 people died due to chemical weapons in Syria. Chemical weapons Obama forbid the Syrians from using. I’m not confused.
You 're delusional.
I just have to jump in here.
- Gkhan; you are under the illusion that if we somehow bombed the hella’ out of Syria when Assad “crossed the Line”; that his people would then have not been gassed.
Wrong. Assad has proven that he would just have doubled-down and most likely gassed them even more.
- Nerve-agent stock-piles can’t simply be “bombed” out of existence. They need to be 1) slowly and carefully removed and 2) disassembled and neutralized at special facilities. (Of which there are only a few World-Wide, mostly in the U.S. West if I’m not mistaken).
The President knew this; intelligence knew this; so what they did was negotiate for the removal of much (NOT all) of Assad’s stockpiles. That is far from “doing nothing”.
Everything cannot not be solved by Hell Fires and Tomahawks.
Not that his people would not have been gassed, but shown what could happen to his government if they cross a red line drawn by the President of the United States.
If I was Obama and I made that threat, I would not have attempted to bomb his chemical weapons but target his ability to make war, much like we did in Libya for better or for worse, I personally think for worse.
If the President knew this, he should not have drawn the red line to begin with.
Agreed, following through with the red line by targeting Assads forces was needed not so much to resolve the threat of Assad and his chemical weapons stockpile but to maintain credibility when we levy such threats in the future. Not doing so severely diminished the weight we carry when making any such future demands.
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This is where I think everyone diverges off on their partisan paths…
While I don’t agree that the “Cross-the-Line” statement diminished our International standing nearly as much as some has alluded…I do concede that it should never been said.
With that said; I have supported the actions afterwards, which have been FAR more than “doing nothing”…
I’m amazed…someone gets it.
No…not really, Gkhan.
What someone “gets” is a particular version of a particular narrative.
I suppose that is something we all do, myself included.
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The consequences of no action has caused way more deaths than no (military) action. And not by a few, by thousands and millions dispersed.
“Bombing” is a very generic term. We have different kinds of munitions. Concussion bombs would have dispersed the chemicals, not to the effect that inaction has caused, but people would have been hurt. Incindiary bombs would have burned up a lot of the chemicals to lesser effect. We also would have needed to hit Assad’s personal assets, including his homes. Plus we hit his communications, etc.
I am not claiming to be a military expert, but we could have done it in a way to limit collateral damage to the greatest effect.
Any action would have gone a long way to avert the current situation, which I repeat is the worst case scenario.
When I say it was our Faklands moment do you know what that actually means? It’s meaning is very specific and when you understand it, you understand the gravity of making a mistake we couldn’t afford to make.
When you understand that our inaction has ruined way more lives (literally exponentially) then if we had taken action, you understand that over caution could be more dangerous than under caution.
It’s very much a Chamberlain vs. Churchill moment. Chamberlain’s over caution threw the world into a war that killed millions more then if he had been hawkish. Pepole back then also thought the leaders must know what they are doing. But they didn’t. And Chamberlain’s inaction made a world of war.
This is a democratic republic, the people are in charge. We get to call out our leaders when they fuck up. Our leaders fucked up with Syria, badly. We cannot disassociate when they do, we need to hold them to account.
Thousands upon thousands are dead, millions are displaced and it’s because we did nothing when we could have done something. Now, we no longer have control of the situation and we have to answer to somebody else when we want to take action.
Think we can just ‘take out’ the Assad regime now? Not without Russia’s permission. We’re done in Syria. We’re ‘allowed’ to fight ISIS and nothing more. All of it goes back to the ‘Red Line’.y
Did I call you confused? I must have been in a generous mood.
Anyway, want to see a check-mate in two moves? Afterward I will elaborate some, but the part where the spotlight lands on you sitting there in the dark with your head crammed so brutally far up your own ass that your hair is tickling the back of your throat – that part will be done by the time I send my next post.
We begin with a couple important details – don’t worry, I’ll be providing them, because God knows I don’t expect you to have any kind of grasp on reality coming into this or any other conversational exchange. Then, a question. Without further ado:
On September 9, 2013, John Kerry told a reporter who’d asked whether there was any way for Assad to avert American military aggression that he could turn over his chemical weapons.
Five days later, on September 14, 2013, the Russians and Syrians formally offered – as in, signed on to – an agreement composed of a massive weapons confiscation and CWC accession.
Question: why did the Russians and Syrians do this? What were they trying to accomplish or avoid? Under what assumptions were they operating?
Again, because if I know anything about you, it’s that you will find it hard not to respond to this post with anything less than a masterpiece of feverish illogic and incoherent twaddle:
Why
did
the
Russians
and
Syrians
do
this?
I already gave you the answer. Go ahead and give it back.
I ABSOLUTELY do not accept this premise, pat.
Thousands are dead and millions are displaced because of hatreds that have existed for Centuries suddenly being unleashed as the Soviet Union disintegrated; dictators and despots were replaced my religious fanatics; and people wish to impose their will and beliefs on others.
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Everybody gets it. From people within the administration down. Very few people, who actually give a shit about something other than themselves and their delicate egos, don’t get it.
Nothing says ignorant like doubling down on a lost proposition. Just Google the red line sometime… It’s not partisan, dems and reps all agree the failure of the ‘red line’ was grave… The full damage of which, we cannot even fully calculate.
The only people who don’t get it are people who don’t pay attention, or are shallow ego maniacs who could never be wrong, no matter how evidently wrong they are…
Your only proof needed, is the reality of the situation and the fact that the worst possible case is playing itself out in real time. And the fact that we are no longer in control over Syria, Russia is. And if we want to do anything, we have to get Russia’s permission to do it.
We’re allowed to fight ISIS and nothing more. Mean while barrel bombs get dropped and chemi al weapons still get used. You need any more proof you are right? Seriously, just look and read, do you need more proof than that you are right? God I hope not.
You can accept it or not, but the reality of the situation dictates otherwise. We had choices and we had the chances to prevent what this became. We sat on our hands.
By all means don’t believe me, look at the history, from right before the ‘red line’ to now. Don’t trust me. Do the research. Read the stories and reports.
This isn’t a simple matter of thousand year disputes. Not Syria. That argument can be made else where, not Syria…NOT SYRIA. Don’t trust me, look at the facts.
The civil war started internally, what happened after, was the effect of external meddling.
Let the facts speak for themselves…
One CANNOT separate countries in the Middle East into “modern” and “ancient” disputes; or “merely” Civil Wars among clearly demarcated factions, including Syria. ALL of these factions, issues and disputes ultimately have roots that go back centuries.
History will ultimately let “the facts speak for themselves”.
Jesus jumping fuck, you can’t write two contiguous sentences without sitting on your own balls.
You just really don’t understand any of this, do you? You don’t even have, like, the bare facts of a Wikipedia read-through (which makes it extra goddamn irritating that you so loudly impose your confusions on other people).
“Thousands die in gas attacks which were not sarin,” eh? Obama did “nothing”?
That number, 1500 (the real number is 1491, if I recall correctly), comes from a SAMS report. You wouldn’t know this because you are an uninformed, babbling idiot – and you clearly don’t read any of this stuff – but SAMS broke the numbers down very precisely.
Of that 1491, more than 1300 – the vast majority – died in a single event, at Ghouta…
…on August 21, 2013 …
…In a fucking sarin attack.
The subsequent death toll has been negligible by comparison, for reasons that will become clear.
As for whether or not Obama “did nothing”: answer the question in my previous post, and we shall see.
Edit:
This isn’t part of the two-post progression I mentioned in my last post. That is still pending, awaiting your answer. This was simply an aside demonstrating to you what I’ve been saying all along – that you just don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Ever. You can’t get basic facts right, you aren’t remotely sharp enough to wing it, you don’t follow international politics as closely as someone would have to in order to opine so often and loudly on world affairs as you do, and you have the analytical skill of a russet potato. Just look at this post and what made it possible: you offered up a stupid interpretation based on objectively false claims of fact. You literally don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, and I end up having to teach you all of this ludicrously basic shit (if you’re whining like a bitch about how badly you want to debate chemical weapons attacks in Syria, you better fucking know enough about them not to faceplant so pathetically as you did above), holding your hand through fervid bouts of delirium and incoherence. It’s a useless waste of my time, arguing with someone who can’t argue back.
Anyway, answer the question from my previous post. It’ll be fun to see whether you can admit that, assuming you answer the question correctly, you’ve stabbed yourself in your own stomach.
That’s not what happened in Syria. It’s just not. Don’t trust me, look it up. Start with the ‘Arab spring’ if you want.
Look if we or nobody else meddled in Syria, Assad would have crushed the rebellion.
The facts speak for themselves right now. No need to wait. [Edit]
Indeed. And they will look nothing like anything Pat has ever said about geopolitics or the Middle East, neither of which he understands in even the remotest, Wikipedia-est kind of way – as this thread has undeniably proved.
Hey Mufasa,
I have taken the time to amass a lot of information for you. I still recommend you do your own research, but the stuff I am providing is very informative. I tried to make sure the sources were decent and well respected. I realize it’s a lot of information, but it’s worth your consideration. The first one is a video and a damned interesting one. It proves that military action was imminent and already planned, only for the plug to be pulled at the last minute. I do hope you give this due consideration, so that you understand my point better and realize I didn’t just make it up out of thin air…