9 questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask

To me, there's no benefit to America if one side wins, and thusly we shouldn't support a side that's not going to benefit us. We need to be a lot more calculating in our going to war - the choice is either Iran and Russia or Al Qaeda. Like FDR's allowing the Nazi's to deal with the Soviet wall of flesh for years before jumping in, we ought to allow the time, energy, and resources of two enemies of the United States to beat each other bloody.

yea i am really not seein benefits of gettin involved here. i see no positives happening. as much as i think assad is a turd, i think our involvement probably results in more deaths

i dont like the sound of chemical weapons


its hard to imagine any other country comin after the usa tho. even if we did intervene but i dont like the idea od putting americans at risk for somethng not worth them dying for. our armed forces are so much more financed than anyone else its ridiculous

A few points, one just because we might be getting involved doesn't mean we are putting boots on the ground. The Navy is going to do what they do and send off strikes.

Two, the benefits of getting involved is to protect our allies/interests in the immediate area that may have to deal with similar attacks. Also I guess you think it's perfectly fine to just kill men, women and children with nerve gas.

Three, as I mentioned earlier americans aren't being put at risk to die for anything right now. No boots are going to be on the ground also they did sign up for the military. So even if that does change later on it's not like they should be shocked or surprised. Just joining the military in the first place is putting themselves at risk that they may have to get involved with something that they don't agree with.

1 already know no boots on the ground


2 lol @ u. you must not care about literally thousands of dead ppl throughout the world bein subjected to death and torture by their own goverments. sorry using ur logic

3 so your main point in this is that american troos wouldnt be on the ground, somethin i already know? umm ok. yea lets send troops and piss off russia and more of the middle east. doesnt sound good to me

the thousands of dead people throughout the world aren't being killed by chemical attacks near countries that are our allies though.

You keep saying you know that troops won't be on the ground yet in your next sentence you say let's send troops and piss off Russia/more of the middle east.

The middle east is going to be pissed off regardless of what we do but in my opinion it's better to DO something than to just sit off on the sidelines doing nothing with our thumbs up our asses.

i was clearly sarcastic i thought when i said to piss off russia


so if the middle east is goin to be pissed off anyways, u want to send high powered weaponry over there??

so we would be arming groups of ppl who generally hate our country. i would like to prevent a future conflict where our own troops are bein killed with weapons that we provided to the enemy if possible

to my knowledge syria hasnt attacked any of our allies have they??

No they haven't yet.

arming groups of people that end up using their weapons against us has been happening for so long. It's not a new thing and it's not something that is going to stop happening any time soon. There are deals that go on behind the scenes that you never even hear about.

Also, having limited strikes isn't about arming anyone. We aren't doing these strikes to take to turn around and arm anyone.

i know weapon sellin has been goin on forever and we have battled against ppl who were usin our weapons before.

but because its happened before, does that make it smart?? i dont like any idea that involves us givin al quaeda more weapons.


what are we really achieving with strikes?? probably not goin to shift the war or really impact it that greatly. it looks like its more of a warning shot to let ppl know we aint cool with chemical weapons. and what if assad calls our bluff and says 'lol whatever usa, watch this huge chemical attack' and attacks syrian ppl again. do we just keep sending unlimited strikes??

The main point that is trying to be accomplished is to show that chemical weapons which are already on whatever ban list of weapons that the UN has shouldn't be allowed to used in any capacity. They already called our bluff by using it in the first place. They are trying to say fuck you we used it. Your move. There are other international countries that agree with the strike that we are getting ready to do but they don't want to come out and say they are and back up what they already agreed to.

The only benefit I see to us getting involved is that without chemical weapons, it will take the Administration in Syria longer to kill its enemies. A prolonged war there saps resources in places like Yemen and Afghanistan.

Not a bad speech. A few thoughts:

1. I actually like that he is taking it to congress for approval. What's too bad is that he felt the need to clarify that he would be within his rights to initiate the attack without congress if he wanted to. It's as if he's trying to juggle giving a nod to the ideals he used to endorse as a candidate while simultaneously justifying his betrayal of those ideals in the past as president.

2. I'm not buying the whole 'threat to our allies' argument. The fact is, the entire situation is a threat to Israel. It's looking like a no-win situation for them just like us. There's nothing to be done about that. But I don't think Assad is very likely to attack Israel or Turkey or any other US ally.

You could make the argument that terrorists might get their hands on the weapons and use them (as Obama did mention), but I guess I'm just unaware of how a missle strike would help prevent that and not really willing to take Obama's word for it that it would.

3. When he was making the statement about what other kind of international norms we're going to allow regimes to ignore, including regimes developing nukes, I couldn't help but think he was hinting at Iran, which was ironic since we look the other way for Israel, Pakistan, India... and we do nothing about North Korea.

It sounds like a powerful statement to say are we the kind of country to sit by and watch this horrible **** happen, but that's exactly what we do. The world police mentality is an unrealistic way of dealing with geopolitics and inevitably falls back on selective displays of symbolic justice.

Warning: death


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very surreal and jarring to see this

i saw that video a few days ago and a lot of other sniper videos of people catchin em in the face and stuff. i dont know what i think about syria right now but from watchin all of these syria war videos i can say im tired of hearing allahu akbar lol

Interesting change of events.

Kerry makes an off the cuff comment and Syria/Russia jump all over it!




Then Putin decides to write an OP Ed piece or get someone to write it for him to make America look like crap. He always wants to offer up Russia like it's the super power alternative to America.

i actually think putin is probably playin his cards right here if im readin things correctly. basically bad mouthing the us but not too harshly. cause of course he must show his people he is strong and not a pussy but also knows that outright blastin the US would be stupid. the US would destroy anybody in a war, we are kind of the big kid on the playground

Since I live in Israel, and I am relatively close to Syria where the civil war is ongoing, the whole thing truly concerns me. I was even scared it would spread to here, but I soon realized thats not gonna happen.....

Like most people(unless you are sadist) it is sickening for me to see the videos and photos of people being killed in various methods during the civil war over there. There is an urgent need for American interference over there and the news Ive heard lately about Obama considering to attack there soon, and then saying he's gonna wait instead afterwards.....I gotta admit that this cant wait. He should have ordered an attack long before even the chemical attacks in August occurred, since from what Ive heard.....they have already used chemical weapons in the civil war even before August 21.

Besides that, I have heard in the news that rockets were launched towards the northern part of Israel, but since I live in the central part it cannot reach the area that I live in.

thats some scary stuff man



i think the syrian government is in the wrong but also dont want to aid some of the groups on the rebels side. seems to me like this has turned into another ****e/suni war and groups are aligning kinda based on that

As much as the US gets called the world's police and yadda yadda yadda. The American public as even evidenced in this thread is tired of the US getting involved in other countries business especially while we still have two conflicts still ongoing. That's one of the main reasons why the US hasn't gotten involved in it until chemical attacks were done.

Putin is so full of it.

"I'm not protecting Assad, I'm protecting international law. International law states you can only attack by decision of the Security Council, which won't happen cause I'll use Russia's veto power to block any attempt to do so."
The problem is we can't fix the civil war with bombs. I don't think it would reduce the causalities nor make you any safer to do so.

If they were tired, or if Obama was tired then he wouldnt announce plans to attack in Syria, would he? Im aware that there is no solution that would completely solve everything regarding the civil war in Syria, but there might be certain things that could be done by the US to reduce the violence or something. Its obvious that the US are being careful with what they do about this, and it requires time to think and plan things.

I know that it wouldnt fix anything. The planned US attack on Syria appears to be more like a response to the use of chemical weapons than an attempt to solve or "fix" anything regarding the civil war there, and obviously it wont solve it. We also cant tell what exactly the result would be in the aftermath of a US attack.

The only reason he wanted to do the strikes is because of the chemical weapons.

My International Relations prof is making us deconstruct and analyze this for Monday's class. I don't even know where to begin *sigh*

If this comes off as harsh then I'm sorry, but this whole thing pisses me off. I'm not mad at you, I'm just mad about the situation.

Why should we intervene? I can't help but suspect that your reason for wanting us to go in is because you're from Israel. I can appreciate that if it's true, but we're not Israel and Syria is none of our business. I'm just as sick of us constantly supporting Israel as I am us invading middle eastern countries. Israel is more than capable of defending themselves and don't need us to keep holding their hand.

The majority of Americans aren't behind Obama on this. So far as I can see the only reason he wants to go in is because he opened his mouth about some arbitrary "red line" and doesn't want to look weak when it's been crossed and/or Israel.

I don't think he cares about looking weak or else he would have just done the strikes without going to Congress first.

He also wouldn't agree to the current Syria agreement about turning over the chemical weapons.

All the republicans are saying that he's the weakest president to ever hold the job. They got war/violence blue balls, they just wanted the US to blow up shit.

dont they have until next yr to turn in the weapons? lol it just makes no sense to me. either disarm them or dont, why wait??

So you think he's sincere about this being humanitarian?

yes, why wouldn't he? Also it's more about the policy set by the rest of the world that chemical weapons is crossing the line. It's not just about the fact that people are dying.

Three reasons:

1. Because he's a politician.

2. Because he's a politician.

3. And because he's a scum-sucking politician just like all the rest of them.

It's not that simple. The US isn't exactly the world police, nor should it be.

Obama knows striking is a risky move and his political opponents will pounce on him if it backfires. They'd also pounce on him if he backed out. There was really no easy way out for Obama. Going to Congress forced his opponents and supporters alike to own some share of the responsibility in the decision. Of course it seems to have been a miscalculation on his part, since ultimately he did want them to vote it through.

The compromise with Russia and Syria actually provides another potentially convenient way out for Obama. Some people are saying this also makes him look bad, and makes Putin look strong. But Obama has a point when he points out that Assad probably wouldn't be willing to come to the table if there wasn't a tangible military threat.

If this compromise doesn't work, it seems like the momentum for Obama's proposed strikes has sort of deflated. I'm not sure what would happen next in that case.

Why so Syrias?

http://static.tumblr.com/mmq6qeo/LXl...oker_gif_7.gif

I'm not great with politics, but I've taken a rather morbid fascination to the conflict in Syria. How it came to be, what it will bring, and what does it mean for the entire world regarding the final outcome. The great deal of confrontation comes from the Alawites and the Sunnis, and the formers grip on power over the country. Sunnis represent a good 2/3 of the population, while the Alawites represent a measly 1/10. So, the revolution came to be because of sectarianism. The current civil war has a lot of deep routes in the early days of Islam, and the different ethic classes that occupy Syria. I do apologize if this has been elaborated on, but I decided to educate myself a but before I actually said anything on the conflict itself.

Regarding foreign powers getting involved, I'm really not too comfortable with this at all. It's just a hot mess, and even after watching several documentaries and reading several articles, I'm still not sure exactly what should be done. I would appreciate it a bit if someone can condense this issue down a bit for me.

informative reddit post

That post highlights a few of the geopolitical agendas that are tied up in the ultimate result of the conflict, but I don't think it identifies a clear reason for the US to strike.

It mentions that it is in America's and Israel's geopolitical interest for Assad's regime to fall because they are allied with Iran and Russia. This is true. Unfortunately for the US, the opposition is not a clearly preferable option to Assad. There is no predicting what elements will seize power post-Assad, and as far as Israel is concerned they've had relative peace with Syria for quite some time now and would be foolish to gamble on a revolution providing a more favorable situation for them.

As far as the Sunni/Shia divide, you could have just as well suggested that the sectarian civil war along those ancient battle lines that followed the 2003 Iraq invasion could have spread to the broader middle east. It seems that whenever instability breaks out in part of the mid-east, the sectarian divisions leftover from before the time when the west partitioned these 'countries' boils to the surface. I don't see the conflict in Syria sparking a region-wide sectarian war, but that's just me.

So ultimately, I think while Assad is far from ideal, Washington is ultimately not willing to risk it on the rebels. This is the debate they have been having for the entire duration of the conflict. Of course they'd love to see Assad fall, but how can they be sure any support they lend doesn't lead to the rise of a regime that is even more hostile to the US?

This is why Obama is only talking about strategic strikes and not 'regime change.' He knows very well that a few strikes won't collapse the regime. That isn't the intent, and thus any strategic goals that depend on the regime falling are ultimately not being pursued here.