No. The Russians don’t want American sights trained on a customer, friend, and trade partner–because American sights are dangerous fucking things. The misconceptions that are swirling around PWI regarding the nature of the relationship between the U.S. and Russia are staggering in number and severity, and I’m not going to take it upon myself to deal with them.
[quote]
I agree with most of this. Of course. The Russians saw what happened to Qaddafi and did not want/do not want the same thing to happen in Syria. So they brokered a deal.
Yet, both The United States and Israel have threatened time and time again to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities yet those facilities are still up and running.
What’s the deal? Our threats are good against a friend and trading partner in one country, (who happens to be allied with Iran) but not good against a friend and trading partner in another?
How is this so? Shouldn’t our threats carry the same weight everywhere around the globe? Why haven’t the Russians told the Iranians to dismantle their nuke plants if they are afraid of a bombing raid?
I tell you what’s dishonest, is pretending you are making a point when your true goal is to attack my character and myself. You’re only interested in tearing me down by any method possible.[/quote]
I’m not “interested” in anything like that. I have documented your many errors throughout this thread in the hopes that you would do what you should do and acknowledge them. Because I don’t want to play Marco Polo in the sewer with you. There is no point in my debating someone who doesn’t know the basic facts that he should have known before having formed an opinion on the matter at hand. There is no point in my debating someone who will make things up, get them wrong, and then shove his head up his own ass and pretend nothing’s happened while inventing pitiable defenses like “I was being deliberately dismissive.” There is no point in arguing with somebody about topic X while at the same moment having to teach them a bunch of basic shit about topic X.
[/quote]
Bullshit. You continue to do it. And you just did it again, while all the time, missing, indeed not even trying to understand my point.
You’re hung up on what you consider an error, while it was exactly what I stated.
The point was, that it did not matter what happened to the weapons after since he already used them before. You proceed to go into great detail about the process of disarmament, I say those details don’t matter all that much. I never said they were statements of facts. I was saying what ever happened to those weapons after the fact mattered little. In that, I said “maybe”, I meant that there are a variety of possibilities available to fate of these weapons.
Chemical weapons can and do deteriorate.
What I was saying and what you do not get is that maybe had Syria used all it’s viable ammo. It wasn’t a statement of fact and never intended to be so. It was a statement of mere possibility. That’s all it was. It was a statement of “For all we actually know…”
Much like Kennedy’s concession of giving up outdated missiles in Turkey to give Khrushchev some sort of face saving concession. Yes, Kennedy gave up weapons in Turkey, but they were considered out dated and more or less in a state of decommission anyway.
The text you quoted in context, I believe was clear about what I meant.
The chemicals removed from Syria may or may not have been viable as a weapon because, though still dangerous, may not have any longer been weaponizable to any great effect. Before you take that all of the previous, my point is that while chemicals were removed we don’t fully understand the threat they actually may have posed.
It’s also possible that what was removed was done so to prevent the terrorists to get to them and turn around and use them on the Assad regime. So the end game may have been advantageous for Syria to not have those weapons used against themselves.
In other words, whatever reason Assad allowed his stock pile to be taken he was getting something for it. Or perhaps it was simply to keep the conventional weapons support from Russia, who may have threatened to cut them off.
When one uses ‘maybe’ as a predicate, a statement of hard core fact is not what is following.
You have not exposed my “many errors”, you manipulated and edited my statement to suit your own goal of merely leveling a personal attack. So next time you say ‘maybe’, I will consider what follows a statement of fact, not potentiality.
I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack and that our Generals certainly lost no sleep over the poor victims in Ghouta. I could have said you don’t know your facts, I could have said you were being intellectually dishonest by thinking that was the only incidence, when in fact it’s only the most well documented and confirmed, but not the only attack. I could have called you all kinds or names and accused you of all kinds of things by refusing to admit that there were many chemical attacks and the true number is unknown. I did not choose to point that out simply to attack your character and show you have an ignorance of the facts.
Syria crossed this ‘red line’ more than once. The deterrence threat on Syria using chemical weapons did not work.
Are you seriously trying to contend that it did work in the face of the pile of dead bodies stacked as a result of Assad’s chemical attack?
Are you seriously trying to say the ‘red line’ worked as a deterrent in the face of overwhelming evidence that the ‘red line’ was crossed?
I have no idea how you can support it worked, when in fact chemical weapons were used by Assad several times.
“U.N. inspectors also said they collected credible information, or evidence consistent with the probable use of chemical weapons, in Khan al Asal, Jobar, Saraqueb and Ashrafiah Sahnaya.”
Again, you take a statement out of context to show a point I did not actually make. You again take my comments out of context, because certainly you are inventing a meaning I did not intend. If you have to take my comments out of context to invent a meaning I did not intend than who’s really being dishonest here?
Where is the rest of it? What context are you inventing this to mean? I suppose your trying to say that we didn’t specify which chemicals were to be disarmed and I clearly didn’t say anything of the sort.
[quote]
What is your argument? All I see is walls of texts rife with insults, but no argument per se.
My argument is very simple. That the ‘red line’ did not work because Syria used chemical weapons anyway.
I don’t consider the removal of the listed chemical weapons a major success because he already used them. It did little to nothing to stabilize the situation in Syria. The removal was the result of a different threat. Russia, not Syria responded to the threat directly. We have no way to verify whether or not they were all removed, they may have, but there is no way to truly know. And he weaponized chlorine gas and used it as a chemical weapon while all this disarmament is going on showing a commitment to using poison as a weapon despite the removal of his chemical arsenal.
You have not shown that Assad did not use chemical weapons as a result of the ‘red line’ which you would have to show to prove it was a successful deterrent. Assad is not deterred. I don’t see what’s hard to understand about this.
Edit: I have responded to many of your points in separate posts. But this one is the big one. If you’re going to ignore a bunch of material as you have been doing throughout this thread, ignore everything else, and respond to this. Good luck.
[quote]pat wrote:
I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]
Produce the exact post of mine wherein I claimed that Ghouta “be the only incidence of chemical attack.” Post my words verbatim.
[quote]
I could have said you don’t know your facts, I could have said you were being intellectually dishonest by thinking that was the only incidence, when in fact it’s only the most well documented and confirmed, but not the only attack.[/quote]
Again, produce the post wherein I claimed this. In your next post. Use my exact words. I’ll be waiting.
The point was, that it did not matter what happened to the weapons after since he already used them before. You proceed to go into great detail about the process of disarmament, I say those details don’t matter all that much. I never said they were statements of facts. I was saying what ever happened to those weapons after the fact mattered little. In that, I said “maybe”, I meant that there are a variety of possibilities available to fate of these weapons.
Chemical weapons can and do deteriorate.
What I was saying and what you do not get is that maybe had Syria used all it’s viable ammo. It wasn’t a statement of fact and never intended to be so. It was a statement of mere possibility. That’s all it was. It was a statement of “For all we actually know…”
Much like Kennedy’s concession of giving up outdated missiles in Turkey to give Khrushchev some sort of face saving concession. Yes, Kennedy gave up weapons in Turkey, but they were considered out dated and more or less in a state of decommission anyway.
The text you quoted in context, I believe was clear about what I meant.
[/quote]
This is embarrassing to witness.
First you were being “deliberately dismissive” (a sad phrase of which I’m actually nevertheless becoming somehow fond. It is strangely honest about its intention to spread shameless bullshit.)
Now you were trying to say…what the fuck? What is this addled mess? And why won’t you just come out and say, “I said something stupid because I didn’t know what I was talking about.” It is clear to literally any observer that this is exactly what happened.
You have not shown that Assad did not use chemical weapons as a result of the ‘red line’ which you would have to show to prove it was a successful deterrent. Assad is not deterred. I don’t see what’s hard to understand about this.[/quote]
What isn’t hard to understand, because I (and Bismarck and Sexmachine) have said it to you directly, is that nobody is trying to show that “Assad did not use chemical weapons.” Have you thought that somebody has been claiming this in this thread? Please show me the post wherein anybody claimed anything like this. Me, Bis, Sexmachine, Gkhan, anybody. Show me the exchange wherein anybody made any argument remotely resembling that nonsense.
While you’re at it, take a look at the actual arguments that have been offered to you. You never know–maybe the mysterious key to success in debate is to understand what your opponent is saying. Maybe.
When one uses ‘maybe’ as a predicate, a statement of hard core fact is not what is following.
[/quote]
What can’t follow the word “maybe” is something that can’t be true.
You followed “maybe” with the suggestion that Assad had used all of his chemical weapons. While Assad’s chemical weapons were on ships, traveling to northern Europe (not Russia, as you also, in your dazzling ignorance, claimed).
[quote]pat wrote:
Again, you take a statement out of context to show a point I did not actually make. You again take my comments out of context, because certainly you are inventing a meaning I did not intend. If you have to take my comments out of context to invent a meaning I did not intend than who’s really being dishonest here?
Where is the rest of it? What context are you inventing this to mean? I suppose your trying to say that we didn’t specify which chemicals were to be disarmed and I clearly didn’t say anything of the sort.
[/quote]
What did you mean then. Be specific. And why is it that you haven’t defended yourself from this particular line of attack the last 3 times I’ve hit you with it?
The redline that chemical weapons use would change American “calculus” in Syria represented ambiguous deterrence. Ignored is the wrong word to use. Assad gambled that he could utilize chemical weapons with no consequence. Even if no red line had been spoken of, the use of CBRN is of grave concern to the international society of states, especially so for its most powerful inhabitants, which Assad was certainly aware of. Deterrence failed. No one is disputing that. That is no fault of anyone in the American foreign policy establishment, unless the CIA’s elite “Men who stare at goats” unit were then vacationing in rural Georgia. The ensuing result of successful peaceful compellence was directly connected to the aforementioned deterrence.
Deterrence: “Do not carry out action X, for if you do, I will strike you upon the head with this club.”
The redline did not present such an explicit threat of force, but merely a change of “calculus”, which is why the qualifier ambiguous is added. Deterrence functions most effectively when it is clearly presented to potential adversaries. However, if such an explicit conditional threat was issued and avoided by the Assad regime, over 1000 tons of military grade chemical weapons would still be in danger of falling into the hands of Islamic extremists. What benefits American and international security more: the removal of a 2,000,000 lbs of military grade chemical weapons from a jihadist beehive, or the preservation of roughly 1,500 Syrian nationals? International relations is a callous endeavor informed by rational egoism, whose ethics are decidedly guided by consequentialism. While the loss of innocent life was nothing short of tragic, to choose the latter would be nothing short of weakness underpinned by naive idealism.
Compellence: “I am now going to strike you upon the head with this club until you acquiesce to my demands.”
Compellence can take a peaceful or physical form. The Assad regime’s relinquishment of its military grade chemical weapons arsenal to avoid the actualization of the threat of American punitive strikes undeniably constitutes peaceful compellence. Nothing would be gained by targeted strikes because they were not necessary to enlist the cooperation of the Assad regime. Indeed, such punishment would greatly endanger the diplomacy that made the Syrian chemical deal possible. In addition, no such threat was issued in the initial ambiguous deterrence, so the concerns of a loss of face in the absence of physical compellence are misplaced.
[/quote]
The point was, that it did not matter what happened to the weapons after since he already used them before. You proceed to go into great detail about the process of disarmament, I say those details don’t matter all that much. I never said they were statements of facts. I was saying what ever happened to those weapons after the fact mattered little. In that, I said “maybe”, I meant that there are a variety of possibilities available to fate of these weapons.
Chemical weapons can and do deteriorate.
What I was saying and what you do not get is that maybe had Syria used all it’s viable ammo. It wasn’t a statement of fact and never intended to be so. It was a statement of mere possibility. That’s all it was. It was a statement of “For all we actually know…”
Much like Kennedy’s concession of giving up outdated missiles in Turkey to give Khrushchev some sort of face saving concession. Yes, Kennedy gave up weapons in Turkey, but they were considered out dated and more or less in a state of decommission anyway.
The text you quoted in context, I believe was clear about what I meant.
[/quote]
This is embarrassing to witness.
First you were being “deliberately dismissive” (a sad phrase of which I’m actually nevertheless becoming somehow fond. It is strangely honest about its intention to spread shameless bullshit.)
Now you were trying to say…what the fuck? What is this addled mess? And why won’t you just come out and say, “I said something stupid because I didn’t know what I was talking about.” It is clear to literally any observer that this is exactly what happened.
Edited[/quote]
The point was it didn’t matter and it still doesn’t what happened after the fact.
You have not shown that Assad did not use chemical weapons as a result of the ‘red line’ which you would have to show to prove it was a successful deterrent. Assad is not deterred. I don’t see what’s hard to understand about this.[/quote]
What isn’t hard to understand, because I (and Bismarck and Sexmachine) have said it to you directly, is that nobody is trying to show that “Assad did not use chemical weapons.” Have you thought that somebody has been claiming this in this thread? Please show me the post wherein anybody claimed anything like this. Me, Bis, Sexmachine, Gkhan, anybody. Show me the exchange wherein anybody made any argument remotely resembling that nonsense.
While you’re at it, take a look at the actual arguments that have been offered to you. You never know–maybe the mysterious key to success in debate is to understand what your opponent is saying. Maybe.[/quote]
A list of events is not an argument. That the Russians compelled the Syrians to give up chemical weapons is not news and to little effect. The details of what went where doesn’t matter.
What it didn’t do, is serve to stabilize the region, prevent Assad from killing his people, even with chemicals, or relieve the threat that the situation poses to the region at large.
You’re claiming success because it removed chemical weapons. I am claiming it a failure because the deterrent failed, continues to fail, and did not help the situation, at all.
When one uses ‘maybe’ as a predicate, a statement of hard core fact is not what is following.
[/quote]
What can’t follow the word “maybe” is something that can’t be true.
You followed “maybe” with the suggestion that Assad had used all of his chemical weapons. While Assad’s chemical weapons were on ships, traveling to northern Europe (not Russia, as you also, in your dazzling ignorance, claimed).[/quote]
I wasn’t claiming a fact, I was making a point, that clearly went right past you. The point was and still is, where and who and what happened to Assads list of chemical weapons doesn’t much matter in the larger scheme of things.
Did Assad back off in the war?
Did Assad stop killing his people?
Did Assad stop using chemicals against his people?
Did it stop the influx of terrorists in to the region?
Are you going to continue to avoid these questions while boring me with details on what chemical went where and to whom?
Now for the record, I have never disagreed that removing dangerous chemicals was a bad thing. All I have been saying is it mattered little and didn’t work to stabilize the situation that has clearly gotten out of hand.
Assad is still in power, he’s still killing away, and he is still using chemicals to kill people. How is that a success?
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Edit: I have responded to many of your points in separate posts. But this one is the big one. If you’re going to ignore a bunch of material as you have been doing throughout this thread, ignore everything else, and respond to this. Good luck.
[quote]pat wrote:
I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]
Produce the exact post of mine wherein I claimed that Ghouta “be the only incidence of chemical attack.” Post my words verbatim.
The redline that chemical weapons use would change American “calculus” in Syria represented ambiguous deterrence. Ignored is the wrong word to use. Assad gambled that he could utilize chemical weapons with no consequence. Even if no red line had been spoken of, the use of CBRN is of grave concern to the international society of states, especially so for its most powerful inhabitants, which Assad was certainly aware of. Deterrence failed. No one is disputing that. That is no fault of anyone in the American foreign policy establishment, unless the CIA’s elite “Men who stare at goats” unit were then vacationing in rural Georgia. The ensuing result of successful peaceful compellence was directly connected to the aforementioned deterrence.
Deterrence: “Do not carry out action X, for if you do, I will strike you upon the head with this club.”
The redline did not present such an explicit threat of force, but merely a change of “calculus”, which is why the qualifier ambiguous is added. Deterrence functions most effectively when it is clearly presented to potential adversaries. However, if such an explicit conditional threat was issued and avoided by the Assad regime, over 1000 tons of military grade chemical weapons would still be in danger of falling into the hands of Islamic extremists. What benefits American and international security more: the removal of a 2,000,000 lbs of military grade chemical weapons from a jihadist beehive, or the preservation of roughly 1,500 Syrian nationals? International relations is a callous endeavor informed by rational egoism, whose ethics are decidedly guided by consequentialism. While the loss of innocent life was nothing short of tragic, to choose the latter would be nothing short of weakness underpinned by naive idealism.
Compellence: “I am now going to strike you upon the head with this club until you acquiesce to my demands.”
Compellence can take a peaceful or physical form. The Assad regime’s relinquishment of its military grade chemical weapons arsenal to avoid the actualization of the threat of American punitive strikes undeniably constitutes peaceful compellence. Nothing would be gained by targeted strikes because they were not necessary to enlist the cooperation of the Assad regime. Indeed, such punishment would greatly endanger the diplomacy that made the Syrian chemical deal possible. In addition, no such threat was issued in the initial ambiguous deterrence, so the concerns of a loss of face in the absence of physical compellence are misplaced.
[/quote]
Was the ‘red line’ issued as a deterrent or not?
We don’t have any evidence that Assad removed his chemical arsenal in response to a second threat of force. We don’t have that because it was the Russians who negotiated it and the Syrian responded to them. Prior to Russian involvement, we had no indication that Syria was going to comply and they sure as hell did not comply with in the week they were given to do so.
What was Syria’s response to Washington?
You are claiming success because chemical weapons were removed. I claim failure because despite chemical weapons being removed, the situation deteriorated just a quickly and the situation has become just as desperate as it would have should Assad had and used those chemicals anyway.
It could also be argued that the Russian lifeline strengthen Assad’s position allowing him to dig in his heals further, which is an embarrassment to Washington since we’ve been calling for his ouster, but provided instead a path to greater resistance to his stepping down. And indeed now, as the opposition has been overrun by terrorists, Assad looks like the lesser of the many evils in Syria.
I have not disputed that chemical weapons were seized and destroyed. I dispute the effect it had on the situation.
These are simple questions:
Was the ‘red line’ issued by obama a call to disarm Syria of it’s chemical arsonal?
Did Assad cross this ‘red line’?
Did the U.S. as a change in ‘calculous’ issue another threat?
Did the Syrians respond to Washington directly?
Did the Syrians respond at all, or where they rather ‘compelled’ by the Russians?
Did Assad stop attacking his own people?
Has Assad used chemicals as weapons since the disarmament began?
Has Assad stepped aside?
Has Syria become a hotbed of terrorist activity?
The agreement backfired also in another way, most embarrassing to the U.S. as we were calling for Assad’s ouster. For the agreement to take place, Assad had to and has to stay in power. It secured his position for without Assad in power, the removal of the declared chemicals could not have begun.
We were simply out maneuvered by the Kremlin and Assad. Having those weapons as a bargaining chip allowed him to dig in his heals. Having those weapons as a bargaining worked out best for Assad and Russia.
The effect of having the arsenal to give up was the best possible thing for Assad and his regime. It bought him the most important thing of all, time.
The redline that chemical weapons use would change American “calculus” in Syria represented ambiguous deterrence. Ignored is the wrong word to use. Assad gambled that he could utilize chemical weapons with no consequence. Even if no red line had been spoken of, the use of CBRN is of grave concern to the international society of states, especially so for its most powerful inhabitants, which Assad was certainly aware of. Deterrence failed. No one is disputing that. That is no fault of anyone in the American foreign policy establishment, unless the CIA’s elite “Men who stare at goats” unit were then vacationing in rural Georgia. The ensuing result of successful peaceful compellence was directly connected to the aforementioned deterrence.
Deterrence: “Do not carry out action X, for if you do, I will strike you upon the head with this club.”
The redline did not present such an explicit threat of force, but merely a change of “calculus”, which is why the qualifier ambiguous is added. Deterrence functions most effectively when it is clearly presented to potential adversaries. However, if such an explicit conditional threat was issued and avoided by the Assad regime, over 1000 tons of military grade chemical weapons would still be in danger of falling into the hands of Islamic extremists. What benefits American and international security more: the removal of a 2,000,000 lbs of military grade chemical weapons from a jihadist beehive, or the preservation of roughly 1,500 Syrian nationals? International relations is a callous endeavor informed by rational egoism, whose ethics are decidedly guided by consequentialism. While the loss of innocent life was nothing short of tragic, to choose the latter would be nothing short of weakness underpinned by naive idealism.
Compellence: “I am now going to strike you upon the head with this club until you acquiesce to my demands.”
Compellence can take a peaceful or physical form. The Assad regime’s relinquishment of its military grade chemical weapons arsenal to avoid the actualization of the threat of American punitive strikes undeniably constitutes peaceful compellence. Nothing would be gained by targeted strikes because they were not necessary to enlist the cooperation of the Assad regime. Indeed, such punishment would greatly endanger the diplomacy that made the Syrian chemical deal possible. In addition, no such threat was issued in the initial ambiguous deterrence, so the concerns of a loss of face in the absence of physical compellence are misplaced.
[/quote]
Excellent post.
But the retort is forthcoming, and it’s going to knock your socks off:
"Oh yeah, well, here is a short list of shit that has nothing to do with your argument:
–Assad is still alive and killing people. Never mind that we are talking about chemical weapons diplomacy and not the end of the civil war. I am unable to reason with specificity, so take this mushy bolus of misconception, waffling, and tangential half-thoughts, and see what you can do with it, Jack! As an aside, I just wrote an article in which I rank the ten best and worst players in the NFL using data on their pole vaulting skills, passion for embroidery, blood type, and, of course, scrotal surface area. Mark Sanchez turns out to be the best QB in the history of the NFL, followed closely by Art Garfunkel.
–And chlorine was used! Never mind that the stupidity of this point has been explained to me by a handful of posters over multiple clear and well-assembled arguments to which I have never even considered responding. Never mind that what is at issue here is a stock of more than 2 million pounds of nerve and blister agents that are actual banned chemical weapons. Never mind that I cannot construct even a shitty half-argument wherein the strapping of some explosives to a common industrial and domestic agent in order to kill a few Syrian civilians constitutes an American foreign policy failure. Obama mishandled the situation because he did’t go in and empty all the factories, supermarkets, homes, and pools in the entire country of Syria. As an aside, Ronald Reagan was a terrible president, because my grandmother broke her leg during his administration, and he didn’t do anything to stop it, incompetent dick that he was."
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Edit: I have responded to many of your points in separate posts. But this one is the big one. If you’re going to ignore a bunch of material as you have been doing throughout this thread, ignore everything else, and respond to this. Good luck.
[quote]pat wrote:
I could have jumped on your errors such as your thinking that Ghouta be the only incidence of chemical attack[/quote]
Produce the exact post of mine wherein I claimed that Ghouta “be the only incidence of chemical attack.” Post my words verbatim.
[/quote]
It’s the only attack you mentioned, several times as these two examples demonstrate. If you knew that Ghouta wasn’t the only region attacked you gave no acknowledgement of that fact.
And…
and…
What I can do here is say you don’t know a fuckwit what you are talking about because you never acknowledged prior it being pointed out to you, that Ghouta was not the only chemical attack.
What you would then say, after a litany of name calling, is “What I meant was…”
To which I can retort, bullshit and your ignorance on the matter is on full display.
We can dosey-doe with personal attacks about how little each other know about the situation, but I am not interested in that.
Here is what I am interested in, what do you think I mean when I say ‘it’ was a failure?
I am curious to know if you understand my point at all, or even know what it is?
Why do you think, I think it was a failure?
I think a little clarity could go along way…
We don’t have any evidence that Assad removed his chemical arsenal in response to a second threat of force.
[/quote]
Holy fuckin guacamole.[/quote]
Present your evidence that Assad responded to the theat… I see evidence the Kremlin took notice. I see evidence that Syria engaged with Russia. I see no evidence that Syria responded to the U.S. threat directly, or that they even had any intention to had Russia not stepped in
