Thread: Military intervention in Syria

Originally Posted by Troy

...and just how many UN Resolutions are Israel allowed to break with impunity. What does that tell the rest of the Arab World?

A question you never hear asked on the mainstream media hear, because to do so would invoke the name of Israel, which is only allowed in positive or neutral tones.

Originally Posted by barbaro

Use of aerial incendiary bombs against civilian populations, including against military targets in civilian areas, was banned in the 1980 United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Protocol III. However the United States reserved the right to use incendiary weapons against military objectives located in concentrations of civilians where it is judged that such use would cause fewer casualties and/or less collateral damage than alternative weapons.[4]

F*krs never stop, do they.

An Op-Ed: Seriously, whose going to benefit? I have read several articles about AIPAC stirring the pot.

Just Whose War Is This?

Friday - September 6, 2013

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Wednesday, John Kerry told the Senate not to worry about the cost of an

American war on Syria.

The Saudis and Gulf Arabs, cash-fat on the $110-a-barrel oil they sell U.S. consumers, will pick up the tab for the Tomahawk missiles.

Has it come to this — U.S. soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen as the mercenaries of sheiks, sultans and emirs, Hessians of the New World Order, hired out to do the big-time killing for Saudi and Sunni royals?

Yesterday, too, came a stunning report in the Washington Post.
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has joined the Israeli lobby AIPAC in an all-out public campaign for a U.S. war on Syria Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League have invoked the Holocaust, with Hier charging the U.S. and Britain failed to rescue the Jews in 1942.

Yet, if memory serves, in ’42 the Brits were battling Rommel in the desert and the Americans were still collecting their dead at Pearl Harbor and dying on Bataan and Corregidor.


The Republican Jewish Coalition, too, bankrolled by Sheldon Adelson, the Macau casino mogul whose solicitude for the suffering children of Syria is the stuff of legend, is also backing Obama’s war.

Adelson, who shelled out $70 million to bring down Barack, wants his pay-off — war on Syria. And he is getting it. Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor have saluted and enlisted. Sheldon, fattest of all fat cats, is buying himself a war.


Yet, is it really wise for Jewish organizations to put a Jewish stamp on a campaign to drag America into another war that a majority of their countrymen do not want to fight?


Moreover, this war has debacle written all over it. Should it come, a divided nation will be led by a diffident and dithering commander in chief who makes Adlai Stevenson look like Stonewall Jackson.


Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey is having trouble even defining the mission. While Obama says it will be an in-and-out strike of hours, a “shot across the bow,” John McCain says the Senate resolution authorizes robust strikes, lethal aid to the rebels and a campaign to bring down Bashar Assad.


If the Republican Party backs this war, it will own this war.


And U.S. involvement will last not for days, but for the duration.


And if our power is unleashed, our prestige and superpower status go on the line.
If the rebels then lose, we lose. And if the rebels win, who wins?


Is it the same jihadists who just shelled that Christian village and terrorized that convent of Christian nuns?


Is it the same rebels seen on the front page of Thursday’s New York Times about to execute, Einsatzgruppen-style, captive Syrian soldiers, forgetting only to have the victims of their war crime dig their own graves first?


Does the Republican Party really want to own a war that could end with al-Qaida in power or occupying sanctuaries in Syria?


Does the U.S. Jewish community really want to be responsible for starting a war that ends with two million Christian Syrians facing a fate not unlike that of Poland’s Jews?

About the debate on this war, there is an aspect of the absurd.

We are told we must punish Assad for killing Syrians with gas, but we do not want Assad’s regime to fall. Which raises a question: How many Syrians must we kill with missiles to teach Assad he cannot kill any more Syrians with gas? Artillery, fine. Just no gas.
How many Syrians must we kill to restore the credibility of our befuddled president who now says he did not draw that “red line” on chemical weapons; the world did when it outlawed such weapons.
Yet this statement may offer Obama a way out of a crisis of his own making without his starting a war to save face.
Iran and Russia agree chemical weapons were used. Vladimir Putin has said Russia will back military action against those who did it. The Russians have put out a 100-page document tracing the March use of chemical weapons to the rebels. The Turks reportedly intercepted small amounts of sarin going to the rebels. We claim solid proof that Assad’s regime authorized and used chemical weapons.
Why not tell the Russians to meet us in the Security Council where we will prove our “slam-dunk” case.


If we can, and do, we will have far greater support for collective sanctions or action than we do now. And if we prove our case and the U.N. does nothing, we will have learned something about the international community worth learning.
But the idea of launching missiles based on evidence we will not reveal about Syria’s use of chemical weapons, strikes that will advance the cause of the al-Qaida terrorists who killed 3,000 of us and are anxious to kill more, would be an act of such paralyzing stupidity one cannot believe that even this crowd would consciously commit it.

Entire: Just Whose War Is This? - Patrick J. Buchanan - Official Website

[quote=Troy;2556002]

Originally Posted by Mr Lick

...and just how many UN Resolutions are Israel allowed to break with impunity.

And what was the voting results of these resolutions ?

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 is a United Nations Security Council resolution adopted unanimously by the United Nations Security Council on 8 November 2002, offering Iraq under Saddam Hussein "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations"

On 8 November 2002, the Security Council passed Resolution 1441 by a unanimous 15–0 vote; Russia, China, France, and Arab countries such as Syria voted in favor, giving Resolution 1441 wider support than even the 1990 Gulf War resolution.

"Napalm" is a combination of the names of two of the constituents of the gelling agent: naphthenic acid and palmitic acid. "Napalm B" is the more modern version of napalm and, although distinctly different in its chemical composition, it is often referred to simply as "napalm".[2]
In 1980, the United Nations declared that "the gel's use on concentrations of civilians a war crime".[1]
Napalm B became an intrinsic element of U.S. military action during the Vietnam War; as forces increasingly employed its widespread tactical as well as psychological effects.[18] Reportedly about 388,000 tons of U.S. napalm bombs were dropped in the region between 1963 and 1973, compared to 32,357 tons used over three years in the Korean War, and 16,500 tons dropped on Japan in 1945. [1]
How much CW was used in Syria?
Pot and kettle?

Originally Posted by good2bhappy

"Napalm" is a combination of the names of two of the constituents of the gelling agent: naphthenic acid and palmitic acid. "Napalm B" is the more modern version of napalm and, although distinctly different in its chemical composition, it is often referred to simply as "napalm".[2]
In 1980, the United Nations declared that "the gel's use on concentrations of civilians a war crime".[1]
Napalm B became an intrinsic element of U.S. military action during the Vietnam War; as forces increasingly employed its widespread tactical as well as psychological effects.[18] Reportedly about 388,000 tons of U.S. napalm bombs were dropped in the region between 1963 and 1973, compared to 32,357 tons used over three years in the Korean War, and 16,500 tons dropped on Japan in 1945. [1]

How much CW was used in Syria?
Pot and kettle?

A fair point to raise. Although (I assume?) the US did not target civilians, Assad was targeting only rebels? Or, did he target civilians?

The US factually did hit civilians (intentionally or uninteniontally) with napalm.

So is it OK to ask: is this a pot and kettle issue?

The question of whether or not they targeted civilians is just legalistic cant to camouflage standard modern warfare, i.e. kill the shit out of everything and everyone.

At least with the "terrorists" you don't have to create then deconstruct spurious categories to talk about what they do.

Buchanan is pretty much correct in the article above, although frankly other conservatives, such as Larison at the American Conservative, are more coherent and less suspect. And the following is just a bit too precious:

"Has it come to this — U.S. soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen as the mercenaries of sheiks, sultans and emirs, Hessians of the New World Order, hired out to do the big-time killing for Saudi and Sunni royals?"
---
Why did St. Ronnie get 200+ Marines killed in Beirut (after which St. Ronnie cut and ran, of course, which was the right move but imagine a Democratic president fucking up so badly)? What was the US in the first Gulf War if not the grandest mercenary force up to that point in world history- why the fuck did we bail out the goddamned Kuwaitis, the most decadent, terrorist-funding assholes in the Middle East? "Has it come to this?" It came to that a long time ago, idiot.

Agent Orange was a defoliant not a chemical nerve agent. I suppose there is no satisfactory use for this defolient in Syria?

Nah, desert is already orange. Drop it in Israel.

Originally Posted by sabang

Nah, desert is already orange. Drop it in Israel.

It'll clash with their white phosphorous..

Originally Posted by ltnt

Agent Orange was a defoliant not a chemical nerve agent.

Yet, extraordinarily toxic.

The US and Israel didn't sign the mine and cluster munition ban treaty either. To inflict maximum casualties on civilians has always been the priority for the US. Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor

A Washington Post survey said 224 of the current 433 members of the House were either "no" or "leaning no" on military action as of Friday, while 184 were undecided and just 25 were backing a strike.

Obama is fucked, his Presidency is over either way

he is going to end up worst than GW Bush, if that was even fucking possible

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Obama is fucked, his Presidency is over either way

Last term yes, but he has 3 years and 1 month left.

he is going to end up worst than GW Bush, if that was even fucking possible

Worse, I do not see, but perhaps "lesser of the two bad."

Poll: Majority Of Americans Approve Of Sending Congress To Syria

News • Syria • News • ISSUE 49•36 • Sep 5, 2013


WASHINGTON—As President Obama continues to push for a plan of limited military intervention in Syria, a new poll of Americans has found that though the nation remains wary over the prospect of becoming involved in another Middle Eastern war, the vast majority of U.S. citizens strongly approve of sending Congress to Syria.
The New York Times/CBS News poll showed that though just 1 in 4 Americans believe that the United States has a responsibility to intervene in the Syrian conflict, more than 90 percent of the public is convinced that putting all 535 representatives of the United States Congress on the ground in Syria—including Senate pro tempore Patrick Leahy, House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and, in fact, all current members of the House and Senate—is the best course of action at this time.
“I believe it is in the best interest of the United States, and the global community as a whole, to move forward with the deployment of all U.S. congressional leaders to Syria immediately,” respondent Carol Abare, 50, said in the nationwide telephone survey, echoing the thoughts of an estimated 9 in 10 Americans who said they “strongly support” any plan of action that involves putting the U.S. House and Senate on the ground in the war-torn Middle Eastern state. “With violence intensifying every day, now is absolutely the right moment—the perfect moment, really—for the United States to send our legislators to the region.”
“In fact, my preference would have been for Congress to be deployed months ago,” she added.
Citing overwhelming support from the international community—including that of the Arab League, Turkey, and France, as well as Great Britain, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Japan, Mexico, China, and Canada, all of whom are reported to be unilaterally in favor of sending the U.S. Congress to Syria—the majority of survey respondents said they believe the United States should refocus its entire approach to Syria’s civil war on the ground deployment of U.S. senators and representatives, regardless of whether the Assad regime used chemical weapons or not.
In fact, 91 percent of those surveyed agreed that the active use of sarin gas attacks by the Syrian government would, if anything, only increase poll respondents’ desire to send Congress to Syria.
Public opinion was essentially unchanged when survey respondents were asked about a broader range of attacks, with more than 79 percent of Americans saying they would strongly support sending Congress to Syria in cases of bomb and missile attacks, 78 percent supporting intervention in cases of kidnappings and executions, and 75 percent saying representatives should be deployed in cases where government forces were found to have used torture.
When asked if they believe that Sen. Rand Paul should be deployed to Syria, 100 percent of respondents said yes.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that sending Congress to Syria—or, at the very least, sending the major congressional leaders in both parties—is the correct course of action,” survey respondent and Iraq war veteran Maj. Gen. John Mill said, noting that his opinion was informed by four tours of duty in which he saw dozens of close friends sustain physical as well as emotional injury and post-traumatic stress. “There is a clear solution to our problems staring us right in the face here, and we need to take action.”
“Sooner rather than later, too,” Mill added. “This war isn’t going to last forever.”

And as the war drums beat, sort of, there is always a rise in the threat of terrorism. To wit:

ALERTS TO THREATS IN 2013 EUROPE
From JOHN CLEESE
...
The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Syria and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France 's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."

The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose."

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels ..

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be right, Mate." Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!" and "The barbie is cancelled." So far no situation has ever warranted use of the last final escalation level.


Regards,
John Cleese ,
British writer, actor and tall person

Originally Posted by MrG

And as the war drums beat, sort of, there is always a rise in the threat of terrorism. To wit:

Amusing, but not written by Cleese.

face saving solution
CW put under "international control"