Senate Intervention in Syria: Yay or Nay?

I bet he's really regretting the "red-line" comment right about now.

 

Bring it on. A reinstated draft won't exactly hurt anti-war sentiment.

The lack of a draft is one of the big factors keeping American pro-war jingoism afloat. People tend to see things differently when it's their own kids on the line.

 

double post

 

Thank you for your kind words sir.

I'm just looking forward to seeing the "evidence" that it was the Assad regime who authorised and used chemical weapons actually being presented to the world so that we can all judge the matter objectively. At the moment all we are relatively certain of is that chemical weapons were used, but by forces unknown. I want to remain objective but I am skeptical that the Assad regime would be so stupid. I'm also not so naive that I would consider the Syrian rebels to be beyond such a stunt. Whenever something like this happens in the Middle East you have to ask the question: who benefits? So, after a bloody two year war which has resulted in the deaths of over 100,000 people with no prospect whatsoever of international intervention, who profits by the use of chemical weapons which everyone knows fundamentally changes the "calculus" and opens the door to a Libyan style intervention and overthrow of the regime? The longer you chew that one over, the more certain you become that it's not Assad who profits.

 

Even if it is Assad's regime, which I'm tentatively inclined to think it is since Australia's claiming independent verification of chemical weapons and that Assad was responsible -- the UN does not want to act. No matter how much evidence you accumulate, it's still going to be an "illegal" war.

 

Edit: Doesn't matter.

 

Well that's the thing. If there is credible, objective evidence which shows the Assad regime was responsible then Russia may re-consider its veto and the Security Council may then be in a position to support intervention by passing a resolution in the same manner as it did with Libya. Russia, quite rightly, is skeptical of any US claims of WMD which support a basis for military action. Syria and Russia are traditional allies in the same way as the US and Isreal are. Russia is not going to authorise the effective overthrow of its ally on questionable "slam dunk" evidence.

 

Exactly. That's why the US has always reconsidered its vetoes when presented with reasonable evidence Israel was building illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories.

 

Sarcasm noted but in exercising its veto power with respect to Israel, the US always pays lip service to the Israeli view (supported by Israeli scholarly legal opinions) that the settlements are not in fact illegal at all. There is also the fact that Israeli/Palestinian issue is subject to a multitude of interim deals and "roadmaps to peace" which the US does not want to upset by authorising sanctions.

There is clearly no scope for Assad to make the same arguments. There is no "grey area" when its comes to the use of that particular type of chemical weapon.

 

I don't buy Kerry's argument that 'inaction will help extremism'. Especially when extremism is already there. What's it going to do? Make it worse? Oh, I'm sure a few cruise missiles will certainly bring the Middle Easterners running to us with open arms. That line reasoning may have worked in 2001-03 when terrorists were the big bogeyman, but we're already familiar with them and we know our odds of getting struck by lightning is now greater than dying from a terrorist (most of us anyway). Besides, the terrorists that are left that we haven't 'disappeared' are the C-team. They're ****-ups and can't even get their act together.

The Boston bombers? Terrible at their jobs--make no mistake: they certainly killed and injured a great many people, but instead of crapping our pants, Boston went onto full lock-down mode and hunted them down. I also think they wanted it to be more destructive, but anyway, the point is that Islamic terrorists and extremists aren't the big fear these days. No, the big fear is all of the crap we allowed to go down during the Bush years that's carried over in to the current climate (NSA spying, indefinite detention, etc.). So good luck selling people on the idea we're in some grave danger if we don't kill some more brown people--we've been there before and have seen the terrible results.

 

I agree. But I don't see how it's ever going to be in Russia's interests to ever concede there is credible or objective evidence as alleged, mainly because of the identities of those saying they've got credible or objective evidence: US intelligence agencies and the US *cough* sorry, Australian intelligence agencies who reckon they have "independent" verification. The US won't be putting economic sanctions in against Russia simply because it won't bend over on a UNSC resolution. The level of evidence it would take for Russia to sell one of its major Middle East allies up the river on this is never going to be achieved by a Western nation -- not without completely compromising that nation's intelligence activities inside Syria. It's presently an all-upside proposition for Russia to maintain its veto; it keeps Syria as an ally, and if the US attacks Syria it gets to keep pushing the US as imperialist and not bound by the UN. And as the dumbasses demonstrating outside the White House over this already demonstrate, there's plenty of useful idiots left in the West to keep the pressure on domestically. It would take extremely damning evidence for Russia to fold on a resolution at this point - something along the lines of a taped Assad conversation saying "Don't worry, we can use Sarin, because Russia is our big brother and will keep the UN and the US off our backs."

 

The only reason why I hold out a small glimmer of hope (assuming the evidence is there) is Putin's recent public comments which can be clearly interpreted as a soft back pedal on the issue of the veto. If it was anything else other than chemical weapons used against women and children, then yeah Russia would go to bat for Syria regardless of the evidence (like the US does for Israel). But I think if the evidence is good (and there is consensus among the other SC members that the evidence is good) then I think Russia would "sell out" Syria for something like this. The use of chemical weapons against civilians has just become such a no-go zone, not remotely in the same ballpark as illegal settlements and the like.

 

So the question remains on where the bar is set for Putin conceding the evidence. But LostOnHoth is correct. Use of chemical weapons against civilians is and should be a red line, and I still don't understand how president Obama can be reasonably criticized for making such a straightforward statement about it. His red line is not the issue here. The issue is how can it be enforced? The U.S. cannot legally act alone. Let the process work. Let the UN reach its conclusions, then see what Russia does.

 

Of course we should go in. We should either go in or get out of the UN, who seem unwilling to live up to it's own charter. It's a disgrace. But to claim that we won't allow genocide and then allowing genocide is exactly the kind of thing that lead to 9/11. If you say something, do something. It's so incredibly simple.

 

The problem is less the UN as the Security Council veto. Of course that same veto has allowed Israel to do what it likes knowing the US will always shield, so if you were to propose to reform the UN to remove that, it might not go down all that well.

Besides the UN has little power over states save for that the states grant it so claiming that the UN should act begs the Q: With what and how?

 

Obviously, Americans would love it if we were the only permanent UNSC member with an absolute veto over any action. Any UN not designed expressly and exclusively to do the bidding of American foreign policy goals is toothless and obsolete.

 

It doesn't matter why the UN is ineffectual. Only that it IS ineffectual. It is made up of many states that don't oppose actions that the UN, by their charter, opposes. It needs to be reformed and only have nation members that agree on what is right and what isn't, such as genocide and child labor laws.

 

And who's going to do the "reforming" ?

And of course the WHY matters, that's true of just about anything.

 

That's not the point. The idea of the UN was to have a consensus of what would be acceptable and what wouldn't. But the member nations, in many cases, are guilty of the same "crimes" we are supposed to fight. The wolf is watching the hen house, so to speak.

 

Ask yourselves one Q: Who wants there to be an "effective" UN?

The answer's obvious: No-one!

 

Reuters is reporting Obama reporting that a majority of G20 nations agree with him that Assad is responsible for the chemical weapons attack.

Earlier this week, it was reported however that the official UN inspector report may take another few weeks to complete. Honestly, I don't see the harm in waiting. The pressure on Russia will increase dramatically with an official finding that the attack could only have been launched by Assad's forces.

On the other hand, the pressure on Obama is not going to lighten up. The House isn't going to fall in line on this issue, so he's not going to have full Congressional backing. The international pressure against unilateral action is going to get worse, and the argument in favor of waiting is pretty solid.

If the U.S. is right about the inevitable results of the report, who is harmed exactly by a few week delay from today? Assad isn't going anywhere. He's not going to launch any more chemical attacks between now and then. There's no chance of the civil war petering out before we get a chance to bomb someone, and the human misery that was never caused by chemical weapons to begin with is going to keep happening regardless.

 

Jabba, do you think Obama is excited to bomb someone? Because that's what you sound like. Is that what you actually think?

 

In addition, it's good politics for Obama to wait at this point.

The GOP will have a much harder time trying to hamstring him if the evidence solidly concludes that the attack was launched by Assad. Not only that, but if the UN passes a resolution, the pressure on Congress to authorize action will go way up, as well.

Peace,

V-03

 

I don't think he's excited, but he sure does have a hard one for this bombing.

 

Part of this whole charade I hope is that the U.S. puts the most pressure on the international community to act when it has everyone convinced that we're mere days away from dropping bombs. The optimistic part of me wants to believe that the UNSC will feel highly pressured to pass some kind of resolution if the UN inspectors report that the chemical weapons attack happened and could only have been launched by Assad's forces.

That's part of the issue here. We need a finding of facts other than just the U.S. asserting that it has ironclad intelligence.