How many SC decisions are against Maobama? He’s 0-for-how-many? 9-0, 5-4,5-4… Worse than the Aussies in da World Cup.
[quote]Bismark wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
To reiterate a last time: The threatened strikes and the disarmament are one and the same matter, because the threatened strikes made possible the disarmament, and to have gone through with the strikes would have been to reject the disarmament deal. They were mutually exclusive alternatives, and the correct alternative was chosen. Choice by choice, the correct choice was made. You do not have the shadow of a case here.[/quote]
You can try as you might. They were not the same, they were different. Different threats issued at different times for different reasons. It was not tied together, except that they had made a fool of him by using them with a looming empty threat hanging over their heads. Had obama insisted that Syria not use and turn over there chemical weapons, then you’d have a point. But he didn’t. The fact that they used them in spite of the threat shows they have no regard or fear of the American threat.
Despite all of that, and the multiple failures in Syria and Iraq, the reserves have been called up and leaves cancelled in my area. War is looking more and more imminent because he was unwilling to do what it took to keep the peace.
[/quote]
You are arguing from intuition (as opposed to structured reasoning). This isn’t an attack upon your intellect, but rather upon your method. As SMH stated earlier, you are indeed attempting to play tennis without a racket. You began the Syria argument with little to no understanding of basic international relations, much less contextual knowledge of the Syrian chemical disarmament deal.
One of your glaring errors throughout this argument has been your muddled understanding of the employment of force in world politics. While the reasons actors employ force are myriad, producing such a list would be far too descriptive and provide little analytical utility. Instead, four general categories encompassing all of these provide a valuable conceptual framework. These include defense, deterrence, compellence, and swaggering.
http://www.columbiauniversity.net/itc/sipa/S6800/courseworks/FourFuncForce.pdf
Obama’s threat of military force in response to a violation of the chemical red line he established constituted an act of DETERRENCE. “Do not carry out action X, for if you do, I will strike you upon the head with this club.” Deterrence is always a peaceful exercise of force, and by definition it has failed when the threat of force has to be carried out.
When the treat of force is carried out, deterrence ends and COMPELLENCE begins. “I am now going to hit you over the head with this club and will not stop until you acquiesce to my demands.” In other words, compellence entails that actor A successfully compels actor B to carry out an action (or not to carry out an action) that it otherwise would not have. (or would have). Compellence does not necessarily require that violence be employed, but can be accomplished by the threat of it or through other means (economic sanctions). Ergo, it can take both peaceful and physical forms. Deterence failed and compellence began. The Obama administration’s deployment of military forces to the region coupled with clear signaling of its intent constituted an act of peaceful compellence, and a successful one at that when Assad reluctantly agreed to relinquish his chemical weapons arsenal.[/quote]
Read this:
^ of course. I’m waiting for China to check him. Just a matter of time.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
But you assertion that everybody but you is a complete dolt when it comes to foreign policy is going to get a response from me.[/quote]
That is not my assertion. What I said is that there are many people around here (as around anywhere) without basic knowledge of the general workings and specific details of international affairs. You’ve made, over the course of this argument, a series of claims that plainly evidence my analysis.
Among these claims are the following:
–That Assad may have used up all of his weapons.
–That the Syrians are giving their stockpile to Russia.
–That the September 2013 weapons destruction agreement had nothing to do with the threat of American force.
These are all egregiously false–not flawed, not problematic…false. As in, not true. They betray an obvious, fundamental ignorance of things that are not interpretations or arguments, but are instead simple, inarguable facts. I have alerted you to this multiple times, and you have literally ignored it.
Now, on to the substance of your argument:
[quote]
But none of that changes the fact that the ‘red line’ was in regards to use of chemical weapons. The Syrians used them and we did nothing. What was the point of that threat if you don’t follow through? [/quote]
As I have explained, you are choosing a facile and fantastical narrative over reality. If things had gone as you seem to wish they’d gone–Obama warns against the use of chemical weapons, they’re used, Obama does nothing, and nothing changes–then your argument would be reasonable, and I would have come into this thread in order to agree with you. But the facts stand in your way. What happened is this:
-
Obama warns against the use of chemical weapons.
-
They’re used at Ghouta.
-
The U.S., in concert with France and other (mostly Western) powers, signals its intention to launch punitive strikes on Syrian targets, contingent upon investigators’ confirmation of the attack.
-
It becomes clear that that confirmation is forthcoming, and, as the West prepares to strike, Russia and Syria scramble to offer a deal in order to avert an attack. They offer the surrender of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile and Syrian accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention.
-
The U.S. accepts the deal.
Now, your argument resides between steps 4 and 5. Remember that diplomacy and war are each made of choices between alternatives. They consist of things gotten and things conceded. Between steps 4 and 5, Obama had the choice of either refusing the Russo-Syrian deal and launching his limited punitive airstrikes, or of accepting the deal and dispossessing a beleaguered and war-torn state overrun by fundamentalist jihadi terrorist militias–a state whose future is the very archetype of uncertainty–of a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. He chose the latter.
I repeat myself: Foreign affairs is a matter of making the choices that entail the greatest benefit to American security and interests. This is exactly the choice that was made in September, 2013. After Ghouta, the rational choice of greatest benefit was to strike. Once the Russo-Syrian offer to surrender the chemical weapons stockpile came rushing in in a bid to avert such a strike, the rational choice of greatest benefit was to accept the deal.
So: The rational choices were made, the benefits were gotten, and an important concession was won. A stockpile of chemical weapons is, instead of being locked up in a war-torn jihadist haven, being turned into sand in Finland. All because the Russians and Syrians gave in in a bid to avoid an imminent American strike. This is what power is meant for, and this is what the threats are meant for.
By the way, a “red line” can absolutely entail the dispossession of a state’s armaments under the threat of military force. Look back at Obama’s unspecific comments: He said that a Ghouta-like event would represent a red line and “change [his] calculus.” It did. So, even by the facile and illegitimate measurement you’re using, you don’t have any argument whatsoever–the calculus changed, we moved to strike, and we took things from Syria that they didn’t want taken from them. The change in calculus won an extremely important concession. Things went exactly as they should have.
Edited[/quote]
The finite points of how and where the weapons are really do not matter to the larger point that Assad used chemical weapons and obama did not respond.
And further you trying to tell me that when the Assad regime says that the Russians, not the U.S. was the impetus for eliminating what they eliminated you don’t trust what Assad says. However, when it comes to the listing of the location and contents of the chemical weapons stores in Syria you now trust that Assad gave up everything willingly and honestly? Please… So Assad was lying about the Russian intervention, but he’s telling the truth about his chemical weapons stores? We can all sleep better because for once, Assad got all honest about that?
The Russians may have taken the treat seriously, but the Syrians did not. The Syrians did not respond directly to the Kerry threats, the Russians are the ones who responded and they engaged Syria. Syria is not afraid of U.S. threats. They have no reason to be. But they are afraid of losing Russian support. Without Russian support, Assad is gone. Assad will do what they say. What does he care what the U.S. thinks?
And who knows why Syria gave up what they gave up, but rest assured it’s not all of it, unless you believe Assad’s regime. They provided the list and there is no way to independently verify that they are all gone. Assad’s the one who provided the list.
Did Syria give up it’s entire stock pile? It’s highly doubtful. But believe what you want.
And no matter what, it still wasn’t the ‘red line’ regarding use of chemical weapons.
And it also begs the question, why was the administration only concerned with disarming the chemical stock pile only after it was used? Why wasn’t the pressure put on before they were used?
Why issue the threats of you don’t back them up? “We really mean it this time!” Does not mean much at all. [/quote]
I wrote a very detailed post with very detailed and lucid explanations, and you have ignored it. Instead of addressing the substance of my argument, you have regurgitated the few (already utterly dismantled) facile and/or simply incorrect talking points you seem to have memorized on the issue, with a goalpost-shift to yet another sub-argument that you haven’t read up on (I refer to the question of compliance). And somehow you are still clinging to the risible claim that “who knows why Syria gave up what they gave up?” I will tell you who knows: We know, and I have proved it to you ten times over. I have cited specific evidence, which you have ignored. Either AP, Reuters, AFP, the NYT, the WashPost, the WSJ, the BBC, the LA Times, the Prime Minister of Syria, and, by far most importantly, plain, obvious, and clear logic have all conspired to get something terribly wrong, or Pat doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Given that we opened this discussion with you not having a hint of a clue as to what you were talking about, I’d say we know which of the two doors is worth choosing.
I want to reiterate this last thought. I have now posted multiple times, over the course of many multiple days, on the subject of the fundamental ignorance betrayed by your words at the outset of this argument. I am not talking about interpretations I find faulty; I am not talking about half-truth or misleading rhetoric. I am talking about things that are plainly and provably wrong: The sky is orange, women have testicles, the moon is made of ice cream…That kind of shit. And you have not acknowledged this. You have kept on pushing nonsense, with what seems to be no notion that mistakes should be acknowledged and corrected. What we do here is we debate each other, and when we get something wrong, we say, “shit, I got that wrong/I made such-and-such mistake/my calculations were off. Sorry.” To be shown to be wrong/incompetent/ignorant of fundamentals, and to push forward as though a refusal to yield will somehow alter the plain sweep of history: This is the purest form of intellectual dishonesty.
In the long post you quoted above, I laid out some of your errors as bullet points. Take a look at them again. They [u]prove[/u], very simply, that you knew next to nothing about this issue before you began trying to debate it. You could not have been even casually informed and still have said such things as you said: You simply could not have claimed, to take one of a number of prominent examples, that Assad might have used up all of his chemical weapons if you’d known that, as you were typing that folly, a thousand tons of Mustard and Sarin were being shipped out Syria and up to Northern Europe for destruction. This means that, despite the fact that you were willingly entering a debate on an issue, you had not even taken the time to learn the most basic headlines-and-context, bare-bones facts to which most people understand that they need access in order to speak even remotely intelligently on an issue.
Which gets back to what I said about these discussions being a waste of everybody’s time, like trying to play chess against somebody who doesn’t know which pieces do what. It also gets at something deeper: You form your opinions before you know what you’re talking about. I know this with literal certainty: You began this discussion with:
- An opinion;
and
- A demonstrated ignorance of the fundamental details relevant to the topic on which you were opining.
To put it much more briefly than it could be put, this is no way to go about things, and I’ve now seen you do it enough times to have detected what I regret to pronounce is a clear pattern.
[quote]Bismark wrote:
you are indeed attempting to play tennis without a racket. You began the Syria argument with little to no understanding of basic international relations, much less contextual knowledge of the Syrian chemical disarmament deal.
[/quote]
This, exactly.
One should understand both what’s going on specifically, and how things operate generally, before getting into these kinds of debates.
At the very least, one should have at least half of the above relatively locked down.
I agree with you entirely on the Syrian chemical weapons issue. However, none of that constitutes “proof.” For someone who demands “proof” for everything and regularly ignores overwhelming preponderance of evidence when it suits, it seems somewhat hypocritical to claim “proof” on this issue. However, as I said I agree with your position.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I agree with you entirely on the Syrian chemical weapons issue. However, none of that constitutes “proof.” For someone who demands “proof” for everything and regularly ignores overwhelming preponderance of evidence when it suits, it seems somewhat hypocritical to claim “proof” on this issue. However, as I said I agree with your position.[/quote]
I am glad you agree, but don’t think I’m being hypocritical here.
On PWI, I tend to consider a political discussion to feature a “proved” point when that point has been evidenced by 1-3 reputable news sources who are stating it as fact in the news (rather than opinion) pages of their publication, provided that the evidence being cited has not since been retracted or reversed, and with a few other reasonable caveats. Because if the 20-year-man who’s getting paid by the Wall Street Journal to think about only the Syrian civil war says X about Syrian civil war (and so does the guy from the NYT, the BBC, AP, and Reuters), then X is good enough for PWI.
But you’re correct that I’m not talking about the same kind of “proof” that we talk about in philosophical debate. Not even close. So, in the interest of not having a weak and strong definition for the same word, I meant “evidenced” above.
Also, I really cannot believe that you can open with this…
[quote]pat wrote:
The finite points of how and where the weapons are really do not matter to the larger point that Assad used chemical weapons and obama did not respond.
[/quote]
…in response to this:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[…] If things had gone as you seem to wish they’d gone–Obama warns against the use of chemical weapons, they’re used, Obama does nothing, and nothing changes–then your argument would be reasonable, and I would have come into this thread in order to agree with you. But the facts stand in your way. What happened is this:
-
Obama warns against the use of chemical weapons.
-
They’re used at Ghouta.
-
The U.S., in concert with France and other (mostly Western) powers, signals its intention to launch punitive strikes on Syrian targets, contingent upon investigators’ confirmation of the attack.
-
It becomes clear that that confirmation is forthcoming, and, as the West prepares to strike, Russia and Syria scramble to offer a deal in order to avert an attack. They offer the surrender of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile and Syrian accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention.
-
The U.S. accepts the deal.
Now, your argument resides between steps 4 and 5. Remember that diplomacy and war are each made of choices between alternatives. They consist of things gotten and things conceded. Between steps 4 and 5, Obama had the choice of either refusing the Russo-Syrian deal and launching his limited punitive airstrikes, or of accepting the deal and dispossessing a beleaguered and war-torn state overrun by fundamentalist jihadi terrorist militias–a state whose future is the very archetype of uncertainty–of a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. He chose the latter.
I repeat myself: Foreign affairs is a matter of making the choices that entail the greatest benefit to American security and interests. This is exactly the choice that was made in September, 2013. After Ghouta, the rational choice of greatest benefit was to strike. Once the Russo-Syrian offer to surrender the chemical weapons stockpile came rushing in in a bid to avert such a strike, the rational choice of greatest benefit was to accept the deal.
So: The rational choices were made, the benefits were gotten, and an important concession was won. A stockpile of chemical weapons is, instead of being locked up in a war-torn jihadist haven, being turned into sand in Finland. All because the Russians and Syrians gave in in a bid to avoid an imminent American strike. This is what power is meant for, and this is what the threats are meant for.
By the way, a “red line” can absolutely entail the dispossession of a state’s armaments under the threat of military force. Look back at Obama’s unspecific comments: He said that a Ghouta-like event would represent a red line and “change [his] calculus.” It did. So, even by the facile and illegitimate measurement you’re using, you don’t have any argument whatsoever–the calculus changed, we moved to strike, and we took things from Syria that they didn’t want taken from them. The change in calculus won an extremely important concession. Things went exactly as they should have.
[/quote]
…because the latter (and temporally former) quote had clearly already addressed the facile objection made in the former (and temporally latter) quote. Did you not read the post? The last paragraph? Did you not read the second-to-last, and the third-to-last, and so on?
As I explained above, in another excerpt that went entirely unaddressed: In the timeline that I wrote up, your argument resides between steps 4 and 5. This is where, and why, Obama “did nothing” [except that that’s utter bullshit, because taking a stockpile of WMD under threat of military force is both not “nothing” and ineffably more beneficial to American interests than a limited punitive airstrike].
So, your argument resides between steps 4 and 5, and amounts to the claim that the U.S. chose incorrectly at that point in the process. This is a ludicrously bad argument, to suggest that the rational choice at that point in time would have been to decline the Russo-Syrian offer of WMD surrender and go ahead with the limited strikes in fear of which the offer had arisen in the first place. It would have done exceedingly little for us and it would have represented the refusal of a tangible no-cost concession of a stockpile of WMD in a destabilized shithole crawling with fundamentalists, jihadis, and AQ sympathizers. If you had been president and had made such a choice, you would have deserved the baffled scorn that you’d have earned by making such an irrational and essentially inexplicable blunder.
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
The reason Obama has done little is an ineffective Congress , PERIOD
If Obama had a Congress as obliging as Bush’s he would have been at least as bad as Bush [/quote]
lmfao…
God forbid the leader of the free world take responsibility or lead.
Go apologize for this piss poor POTUS somewhere else.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Also, I really cannot believe that you can open with this…
[quote]pat wrote:
The finite points of how and where the weapons are really do not matter to the larger point that Assad used chemical weapons and obama did not respond.
[/quote]
…in response to this:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[…] If things had gone as you seem to wish they’d gone–Obama warns against the use of chemical weapons, they’re used, Obama does nothing, and nothing changes–then your argument would be reasonable, and I would have come into this thread in order to agree with you. But the facts stand in your way. What happened is this:
-
Obama warns against the use of chemical weapons.
-
They’re used at Ghouta.
-
The U.S., in concert with France and other (mostly Western) powers, signals its intention to launch punitive strikes on Syrian targets, contingent upon investigators’ confirmation of the attack.
-
It becomes clear that that confirmation is forthcoming, and, as the West prepares to strike, Russia and Syria scramble to offer a deal in order to avert an attack. They offer the surrender of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile and Syrian accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention.
-
The U.S. accepts the deal.
Now, your argument resides between steps 4 and 5. Remember that diplomacy and war are each made of choices between alternatives. They consist of things gotten and things conceded. Between steps 4 and 5, Obama had the choice of either refusing the Russo-Syrian deal and launching his limited punitive airstrikes, or of accepting the deal and dispossessing a beleaguered and war-torn state overrun by fundamentalist jihadi terrorist militias–a state whose future is the very archetype of uncertainty–of a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. He chose the latter.
I repeat myself: Foreign affairs is a matter of making the choices that entail the greatest benefit to American security and interests. This is exactly the choice that was made in September, 2013. After Ghouta, the rational choice of greatest benefit was to strike. Once the Russo-Syrian offer to surrender the chemical weapons stockpile came rushing in in a bid to avert such a strike, the rational choice of greatest benefit was to accept the deal.
So: The rational choices were made, the benefits were gotten, and an important concession was won. A stockpile of chemical weapons is, instead of being locked up in a war-torn jihadist haven, being turned into sand in Finland. All because the Russians and Syrians gave in in a bid to avoid an imminent American strike. This is what power is meant for, and this is what the threats are meant for.
By the way, a “red line” can absolutely entail the dispossession of a state’s armaments under the threat of military force. Look back at Obama’s unspecific comments: He said that a Ghouta-like event would represent a red line and “change [his] calculus.” It did. So, even by the facile and illegitimate measurement you’re using, you don’t have any argument whatsoever–the calculus changed, we moved to strike, and we took things from Syria that they didn’t want taken from them. The change in calculus won an extremely important concession. Things went exactly as they should have.
[/quote]
…because the latter (and temporally former) quote had clearly already addressed the facile objection made in the former (and temporally latter) quote. Did you not read the post? The last paragraph? Did you not read the second-to-last, and the third-to-last, and so on?
As I explained above, in another excerpt that went entirely unaddressed: In the timeline that I wrote up, your argument resides between steps 4 and 5. This is where, and why, Obama “did nothing” [except that that’s utter bullshit, because taking a stockpile of WMD under threat of military force is both not “nothing” and ineffably more beneficial to American interests than a limited punitive airstrike].
So, your argument resides between steps 4 and 5, and amounts to the claim that the U.S. chose incorrectly at that point in the process. This is a ludicrously bad argument, to suggest that the rational choice at that point in time would have been to decline the Russo-Syrian offer of WMD surrender and go ahead with the limited strikes in fear of which the offer had arisen in the first place. It would have done exceedingly little for us and it would have represented the refusal of a tangible no-cost concession of a stockpile of WMD in a destabilized shithole crawling with fundamentalists, jihadis, and AQ sympathizers. If you had been president and had made such a choice, you would have deserved the baffled scorn that you’d have earned by making such an irrational and essentially inexplicable blunder.[/quote]
You cannot stand not having the last word can you?
I am out of effort, but that won’t change the fact that I am still right 
[quote]Bismark wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
To reiterate a last time: The threatened strikes and the disarmament are one and the same matter, because the threatened strikes made possible the disarmament, and to have gone through with the strikes would have been to reject the disarmament deal. They were mutually exclusive alternatives, and the correct alternative was chosen. Choice by choice, the correct choice was made. You do not have the shadow of a case here.[/quote]
You can try as you might. They were not the same, they were different. Different threats issued at different times for different reasons. It was not tied together, except that they had made a fool of him by using them with a looming empty threat hanging over their heads. Had obama insisted that Syria not use and turn over there chemical weapons, then you’d have a point. But he didn’t. The fact that they used them in spite of the threat shows they have no regard or fear of the American threat.
Despite all of that, and the multiple failures in Syria and Iraq, the reserves have been called up and leaves cancelled in my area. War is looking more and more imminent because he was unwilling to do what it took to keep the peace.
[/quote]
You are arguing from intuition (as opposed to structured reasoning). This isn’t an attack upon your intellect, but rather upon your method. As SMH stated earlier, you are indeed attempting to play tennis without a racket. You began the Syria argument with little to no understanding of basic international relations, much less contextual knowledge of the Syrian chemical disarmament deal.
One of your glaring errors throughout this argument has been your muddled understanding of the employment of force in world politics. While the reasons actors employ force are myriad, producing such a list would be far too descriptive and provide little analytical utility. Instead, four general categories encompassing all of these provide a valuable conceptual framework. These include defense, deterrence, compellence, and swaggering.
http://www.columbiauniversity.net/itc/sipa/S6800/courseworks/FourFuncForce.pdf
Obama’s threat of military force in response to a violation of the chemical red line he established constituted an act of DETERRENCE. “Do not carry out action X, for if you do, I will strike you upon the head with this club.” Deterrence is always a peaceful exercise of force, and by definition it has failed when the threat of force has to be carried out.
When the treat of force is carried out, deterrence ends and COMPELLENCE begins. “I am now going to hit you over the head with this club and will not stop until you acquiesce to my demands.” In other words, compellence entails that actor A successfully compels actor B to carry out an action (or not to carry out an action) that it otherwise would not have. (or would have). Compellence does not necessarily require that violence be employed, but can be accomplished by the threat of it or through other means (economic sanctions). Ergo, it can take both peaceful and physical forms. Deterence failed and compellence began. The Obama administration’s deployment of military forces to the region coupled with clear signaling of its intent constituted an act of peaceful compellence, and a successful one at that when Assad reluctantly agreed to relinquish his chemical weapons arsenal.[/quote]
That is a very lucid, solid response. I beg to differ for many reasons. I am not arguing out of intuition. When Syria crossed the ‘red line’ it sent the obama administration scrambling. Initially, they had no response. “The president is consulting his security team”… I.E. he had no plan ready when they crossed the line because he didn’t think they would do it.
The problem was, Syria was falling apart and we had a chance then to make the tree fall where we needed it to, to preserve peace in the region. Oust Assad and get a more friendly government in place. That in essence was supposed to be the plan. Nobody wanted, what actually ended up happening to happen. The ‘red line’ was merely a golden opportunity.
We all know it really wasn’t about chemical weapons. It never was. Obama gambled thinking that Assad wouldn’t have the balls to do it.
The reduction of chemical weapons of Assad’s choosing is a very small victory in an over all loss.
The worst thing that could happen was that the opposition in Syria get over run with terrorists who then threaten the security of the entire region.
Because of American inaction, this worst case scenario has taken place.
The ‘red line’ was merely one opportunity to contain the situation squandered.
There is and was no way the Syrian problem was not going to destabilize the region. What could have been contained with limited American assets is now going to take a much larger investment.
The Russian chemical weapon deal with Assad is merely a save face for the administration. In the end, Assad still has chemical weapons and the entire region’s security is greatly compromised.
What I see unfolding before me is a combination of the blunders that started WW2 and Vietnam. “Well if you cross this line, then we will act!”, “Oh, well don’t you dare cross this line!”. “Well you better not do this!”
Next thing you know what could have been contained earlier with a minor investment is now going to take a much greater investment.
You guys keep seeing this getting rid of some, or even most of their chemical arsenal as some victory. In a very small sense it was, at the expense of the bigger picture. The clouds of war are gathering partly due to inaction on the ‘red line’ and many other missed opportunities to contain the problem. It’s going to now be a much larger war now that every body is well organized.
What was really gained? Not much. Assad already used the chemical weapons. Once confirmed, several strongly suspected actions. You have a very well funded and organized terrorist organization taking over vast swaths of territory. You have Syrian bombers attacking targets in Iraq. Thousands of people being slaughtered. We are going to war sooner or later. Missed opportunities such as the ‘red line’ to contain or slow the progression of what took place is what got us to this point.
This focus on the disarmament of the chemical weapons Assad declared seems to me to ignore the larger problem resulting from issuing idle threats.
I understand well why you stopped addressing any shadow of my actual argument a long time ago, and why you’re eager to get out of the discussion. But I do not understand what benefit you think will come from ignoring the fundamental errors you’ve made throughout this debate, even after I assembled them in a list and alerted you to them over the course of multiple posts. Being simply wrong is OK (though not advisable, particularly when the error could easily have been averted by knowing the basic facts before trying to debate them). Being simply wrong and pretending otherwise, on the other hand, is not OK under any circumstance.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
I understand well why you stopped addressing any shadow of my actual argument a long time ago, and why you’re eager to get out of the discussion. But I do not understand what benefit you think will come from ignoring the fundamental errors you’ve made throughout this debate, even after I assembled them in a list and alerted you to them over the course of multiple posts. Being simply wrong is OK (though not advisable, particularly when the error could easily have been averted by knowing the basic facts before trying to debate them). Being simply wrong and pretending otherwise, on the other hand, is not OK under any circumstance.[/quote]
Serious debate? I hardly thought so. This is hardly serious, it’s politics.
You focused on the draw down of chemical weapons. It doesn’t matter how much detail you present about the removal of said chemical weapons.
These are the facts and they are not disputable:
- The ‘red line’ was not related to the removal of chemical weapons.
- obama issued the threat of the ‘red line’ to deter the use of chemical weapons.
- Assad used chemical weapons anyway, hence the deterrence failed.
- Kerry issued another threat this time requiring Syria remove all it’s chemical weapons in a week.
- Russia, not Syria responded to the threat.
- Assad’s regime provided the list and those weapons were removed.
- We have no way of knowing if he gave them all up, one would be stupid to think so.
- Assad gave up some chemical weapons…whooptie doo. Syria is in chaos.
So in the mean time, while obama leveled idle threats:
- Syria is in civil war threatening the security of the entire ME.
- The U.S. had several opportunities early on, including but most certainly not limited to this ridiculous ‘red line’, to mitigate the issues in Syria before it came completely unglued.
- The death toll and consequence of our inaction on all facets of the Syrian problem is over 150,000 people. (I know, who cares right?)
- The opposition has been taken over by terrorists who are well funded, organized and extremely successful.
- The situation has bled over into Iraq.
- War in the region is pending.
So if you define success by the removal of some, but not all of Syria’s chemical weapons stash in light of the utter quagmire the region has become, I’d hate to see what you would consider a failure.
Syria is a failure in every possible way, it is the worst case scenario.
What started it all? The celebrated ‘Arab Spring’, which also failed.
But I am certain in your eyes, obama can do no wrong. Reset with Russia? Deteriorating relations with Israel? Benghazi? The cowardly backing away from the European missile defense system? Iran? Sudan? The list is endless.
You try to portray yourself as a moderate but it’s a facade. Obama can do no wrong in your book. That’s why you fixated on a singular point in a broad discussion. Hammering away at how good a job he did with disarming a portion of Syria’s chemical weapons stash when the point is and always has been much broader. The red line, the chemical weapons is merely a sideshow in a circus of disaster. The world is a far more dangerous place now than it was and obama had a huge hand in that. But hey he sure scared them in to giving up some chemical weapons…yay
You can disparage me all you want, it doesn’t change facts. And quite frankly I wish you were right.
^ Pretty much sums it up.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
I understand well why you stopped addressing any shadow of my actual argument a long time ago, and why you’re eager to get out of the discussion. But I do not understand what benefit you think will come from ignoring the fundamental errors you’ve made throughout this debate, even after I assembled them in a list and alerted you to them over the course of multiple posts. Being simply wrong is OK (though not advisable, particularly when the error could easily have been averted by knowing the basic facts before trying to debate them). Being simply wrong and pretending otherwise, on the other hand, is not OK under any circumstance.[/quote]
Serious debate? I hardly thought so. This is hardly serious, it’s politics.
You focused on the draw down of chemical weapons. It doesn’t matter how much detail you present about the removal of said chemical weapons.
These are the facts and they are not disputable:
- The ‘red line’ was not related to the removal of chemical weapons.
- obama issued the threat of the ‘red line’ to deter the use of chemical weapons.
- Assad used chemical weapons anyway, hence the deterrence failed.
- Kerry issued another threat this time requiring Syria remove all it’s chemical weapons in a week.
- Russia, not Syria responded to the threat.
- Assad’s regime provided the list and those weapons were removed.
- We have no way of knowing if he gave them all up, one would be stupid to think so.
- Assad gave up some chemical weapons…whooptie doo. Syria is in chaos.
So in the mean time, while obama leveled idle threats:
- Syria is in civil war threatening the security of the entire ME.
- The U.S. had several opportunities early on, including but most certainly not limited to this ridiculous ‘red line’, to mitigate the issues in Syria before it came completely unglued.
- The death toll and consequence of our inaction on all facets of the Syrian problem is over 150,000 people. (I know, who cares right?)
- The opposition has been taken over by terrorists who are well funded, organized and extremely successful.
- The situation has bled over into Iraq.
- War in the region is pending.
So if you define success by the removal of some, but not all of Syria’s chemical weapons stash in light of the utter quagmire the region has become, I’d hate to see what you would consider a failure.
Syria is a failure in every possible way, it is the worst case scenario.
What started it all? The celebrated ‘Arab Spring’, which also failed.
But I am certain in your eyes, obama can do no wrong. Reset with Russia? Deteriorating relations with Israel? Benghazi? The cowardly backing away from the European missile defense system? Iran? Sudan? The list is endless.
You try to portray yourself as a moderate but it’s a facade. Obama can do no wrong in your book. That’s why you fixated on a singular point in a broad discussion. Hammering away at how good a job he did with disarming a portion of Syria’s chemical weapons stash when the point is and always has been much broader. The red line, the chemical weapons is merely a sideshow in a circus of disaster. The world is a far more dangerous place now than it was and obama had a huge hand in that. But hey he sure scared them in to giving up some chemical weapons…yay
You can disparage me all you want, it doesn’t change facts. And quite frankly I wish you were right.[/quote]
Despite my criticism of this frankly embarrassing spell of intellectual dishonesty, you continue to refuse to acknowledge the simple documented fact that you entered this debate without a clue as to what you were talking about.
I wrote this on June 26th:
[quote]
There are many people around here (as around anywhere) without basic knowledge of the general workings and specific details of international affairs. You’ve made, over the course of this argument, a series of claims that plainly evidence my analysis.
Among these claims are the following:
–That Assad may have used up all of his weapons.
–That the Syrians are giving their stockpile to Russia.
–That the September 2013 weapons destruction agreement had nothing to do with the threat of American force.
These are all egregiously false–not flawed, not problematic…false. As in, not true. They betray an obvious, fundamental ignorance of things that are not interpretations or arguments, but are instead simple, inarguable facts. I have alerted you to this multiple times, and you have literally ignored it.[/quote]
And I wrote this yesterday:
[quote]
I have now posted multiple times, over the course of many multiple days, on the subject of the fundamental ignorance betrayed by your words at the outset of this argument. I am not talking about interpretations I find faulty; I am not talking about half-truth or misleading rhetoric. I am talking about things that are plainly and provably wrong: The sky is orange, women have testicles, the moon is made of ice cream…That kind of shit. And you have not acknowledged this. You have kept on pushing nonsense, with what seems to be no notion that mistakes should be acknowledged and corrected. What we do here is we debate each other, and when we get something wrong, we say, “shit, I got that wrong/I made such-and-such mistake/my calculations were off. Sorry.” To be shown to be wrong/incompetent/ignorant of fundamentals, and to push forward as though a refusal to yield will somehow alter the plain sweep of history: This is the purest form of intellectual dishonesty.
In the long post you quoted above, I laid out some of your errors as bullet points. Take a look at them again. They [u]prove[/u], very simply, that you knew next to nothing about this issue before you began trying to debate it. You could not have been even casually informed and still have said such things as you said: You simply could not have claimed, to take one of a number of prominent examples, that Assad might have used up all of his chemical weapons if you’d known that, as you were typing that folly, a thousand tons of Mustard and Sarin were being shipped out Syria and up to Northern Europe for destruction. This means that, despite the fact that you were willingly entering a debate on an issue, you had not even taken the time to learn the most basic headlines-and-context, bare-bones facts to which most people understand that they need access in order to speak even remotely intelligently on an issue.
Which gets back to what I said about these discussions being a waste of everybody’s time, like trying to play chess against somebody who doesn’t know which pieces do what. It also gets at something deeper: You form your opinions before you know what you’re talking about. I know this with literal certainty: You began this discussion with:
- An opinion;
and
- A demonstrated ignorance of the fundamental details relevant to the topic on which you were opining.
To put it much more briefly than it could be put, this is no way to go about things, and I’ve now seen you do it enough times to have detected what I regret to pronounce is a clear pattern.[/quote]
Also I wrote this yesterday also:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
I understand well why you stopped addressing any shadow of my actual argument a long time ago, and why you’re eager to get out of the discussion. But I do not understand what benefit you think will come from ignoring the fundamental errors you’ve made throughout this debate, even after I assembled them in a list and alerted you to them over the course of multiple posts. Being simply wrong is OK (though not advisable, particularly when the error could easily have been averted by knowing the basic facts before trying to debate them). Being simply wrong and pretending otherwise, on the other hand, is not OK under any circumstance.[/quote]
And yet you have still not acknowledged the plain fact that you came into this debate with less than a layman’s understanding of even the broadest relevant details, got a bunch of elementary factual claims completely and utterly wrong, and knew next to nothing about what was going on with the international situation you were trying to offer opinions on. Not only do I not understand why you thought your uninformed opinions would mean anything to me; I don’t understand how or why they could mean anything to you, uninformed as they are.
I took the time to teach you what was happening while at the same time trying to debate you. And you refuse to acknowledge this? You have not said, “I got that wrong/I didn’t know what I was talking about/I should have read up on this before loudly proclaiming a bunch of arrantly silly bullshit as fact.” You should have said all these things.
I first got a hint of your intellectual dishonesty when it became clear to everyone that you were losing the Proof of God argument. I asked you a question which was a prelude to checkmate, and, when you recognized this, you refused to answer the question over the course of however-many days despite my insistent re-postings. At that time, I chalked it up to you not wanting to lose an argument related to God’s existence, being as that topic is close to home for you. I chalked it up to passion, in other words. But here we are, covered in your intellectual dishonesty, debating something that you really can’t be all that passionate about, given that you hadn’t taken the time to learn much of anything about it until as recently as last week.
As for the detail of your post, again you are ignoring points that were made a week ago. Instead of addressing reality–and you can’t say you’re simply ignorant of reality (as you were when this discussion opened), because much has been explained and laid out for you since then–you have continuously insisted upon throwing a facile pile of mush at the wall and, when it doesn’t stick (because it won’t), scooping it up and throwing it again. Nothing about your argument has changed despite its having been addressed and attacked and torn to pieces and readdressed and re-attacked and torn up all over again. I could re-post whole arguments that you have never dared touch, opting instead to put your fingers in your ears and sing to yourself. “Benghazi! Sudan! Iran!” Do you think that naming countries and cities constitutes support of your argument? A scattered and addled string of nouns do not a compelling case make, and there is nothing about Sudan that has anything to do with what we’re talking about.
What we’re talking about, by the way, is this:
This is the timeline of relevant events. I contend that the rational and correct choice was made at each step along the way, and that the greatest possible benefit to American security and international interest was pursued and acquired with each new development. You contend that the situation was somehow mishandled by the Obama administration. Because they are reactionary and at the very least bipolar, diplomatic efforts like the one under present consideration are judged according to which choices were made under which circumstances. That is, we judge a side with regard to what it could control and how it used what it could control to pursue and win benefit: Its decisions, step by step, and the alternative decisions available to it.
So, go ahead. Choose a decision from that timeline and say which alternative choice Obama and his people should have made, and why, and how things would have turned out differently, and how this different result would have entailed greater benefit to American security interests. This is the necessary implication of your criticism: That something should have been done differently by the Obama administration given the circumstances at that point in time. So go for it: Which step, and why?
Keep in mind that we’re talking about Ghouta and the diplomacy that preceded and followed it directly, not “Syria omg Syria so bad!” In other words, we’re not talking about the civil war in general, and, given how little you knew about this much smaller and much simpler issue at hand, I think it’s certainly best we save a larger discussion for another day or year or decade. We’re talking about the handling or mishandling of one chain of events. Also, again, you seem not to have read up on the process of weapons declaration, so I’ll address that after (if) you compose a response to this.
Also: Two things cannot be “not related” to each other when they are mutually exclusive alternatives to each other. The disarmament deal and the follow-through strikes were mutually exclusive alternative responses to the selfsame event, and are thus, by logical necessity, related on a fundamental level.
Oh, and you’re going to have to show how a “change in calculus” is not entailed by the dispossession of a state’s weapons under threat of military force. This is something Syria didn’t want–a consequence–and yet it happened. So, nothing about the original nonspecific “threat” was violated, even by the simplistic and illegitimate measure you’re trying to use.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Read this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...222c_story.html [/quote]
Link doesn’t work.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Also: Two things cannot be “not related” to each other when they are mutually exclusive alternatives to each other. The disarmament deal and the follow-through strikes were mutually exclusive alternative responses to the selfsame event, and are thus, by logical necessity, related on a fundamental level.
Oh, and you’re going to have to show how a “change in calculus” is not entailed by the dispossession of a state’s weapons under threat of military force. This is something Syria didn’t want–a consequence–and yet it happened. So, nothing about the original nonspecific “threat” was violated, even by the simplistic and illegitimate measure you’re trying to use.[/quote]
I don’t get paid enough…
I don’t have to show anything. The world is doing that for me. I’ll get to the rest when I can.
I thought I had stamina, when you get on a horse, you’ll ride it until it’s dead, resurrect it and ride it til it dies again.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Read this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...222c_story.html [/quote]
Was this it:
I read this yesterday. He thinks I am right. I know I am.
EDIT: Forgive me, I just got up. Washington post, not WSJ. Good op ed anyway.