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Blackbird Fly posted:I do have to say that in these gas attacks, the problem is not that gas was used but that innocents were killed. I mean seriously, what kind of hosed up logic thinks that certain weapons are legal over others in killing innocent people. When a person stands trial for first-degree murder the judge won't give a lesser sentence because the murderer used a crowbar instead of a shotgun. The problem is chemical weapons cost essentially nothing to produce, which makes permitting their use dangerous in that massive population killing amounts could be produced nearly instantaneously at almost no cost.
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Aug 30, 2013 12:40
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Are the any valid reasons for Obama to not seek congressional approval for this? Other than the fact that they might vote it down, which isn't a valid reason? Yeah, I know he didn't get Congress's permission for intervention in Libya, but public opinion seems to be far more disapproving of intervention in Syria than it was there, probably because the public realizes the situation is a gigantic clusterfuck and throwing a few bombs at Assad isn't going to do anything. Honestly, the main reason I can see for Obama to want to jump into this is to save face, so he doesn't look like a bluffing weakling over his "red line" speech.
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Aug 30, 2013 12:45
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Thanqol posted:Because it sets a precedent. China is a dictatorship and does good business with dictatorships. If the UN gets used to blowing up dictatorships every time they do something horrifying then eventually China starts getting locked out of global alliances and becomes isolated in a world that buys into the US's cultural assumptions about leadership. Because China has a long established history and policy of not being imperialist. China is happy to do business with basically anyone and without strings attached. The US goes and leaves a mess in its wake, and China swoops in, more than happy to do business again with whoever's in charge. No demands on other nations and how they conduct themselves domestically.
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Aug 30, 2013 12:51
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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:Because China has a long established history and policy of not being imperialist. China is happy to do business with basically anyone and without strings attached. The US goes and leaves a mess in its wake, and China swoops in, more than happy to do business again with whoever's in charge. No demands on other nations and how they conduct themselves domestically. How is propping up friendly dictatorships "not imperialist" when China does it?
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Aug 30, 2013 12:56
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Weirdly enough, a small majority of Germans are actually in favor of a military intervention in Syria: 42% in favor, 41% against and the rest is undecided. Of course, a vast majority is against German involvement, too. So the official opinion is something like: "Someone should do something, but please without us.".  In other news, France maybe OK with a strike, even without UN-blessing. Hollande: "If the security council can't act, a coalition will be formed." If the French timetable holds, we could see the first strikes before Wednesday. Next week will be interesting! Edit: Oh, looks like Israel has stationed one of it's "Iron Dome"-antimissile defence batteries at Tel Aviv, "just in case". (Part of the same article I linked above, I was just too slow on reading up to this point.) Libluini fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Aug 30, 2013 |
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Aug 30, 2013 12:57
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Sucrose posted:Are the any valid reasons for Obama to not seek congressional approval for this? Other than the fact that they might vote it down, which isn't a valid reason? Yeah, I know he didn't get Congress's permission for intervention in Libya, but public opinion seems to be far more disapproving of intervention in Syria than it was there, probably because the public realizes the situation is a gigantic clusterfuck and throwing a few bombs at Assad isn't going to do anything. Yea at least bush had congressional and public approval for his disastrous wars. Obama has neither right now.
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Aug 30, 2013 13:00
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shizen posted:Can anyone give me a brief reason for Russia's interest in Syria and why its considered important to them? - Russia's only naval base in the Med. - Big buyer of Russian arms - Russia has become financially committed to the regime by literally flying in planeloads full of money to keep the regime afloat - Putin doesn't want to look weak - Russia has a longstanding policy of taking very harsh stance against any Islamists - Ignorant Russians seem to really believe that the FSA are all genocidal terrorists who were definitely behind the sarin attack because Russian news media is a sick joke - Anything to keep Russians distracted from the fact that Putin pocketed 70 billion worth of Russia's cash Rosscifer fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Aug 30, 2013 |
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Aug 30, 2013 13:01
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Sucrose posted:How is propping up friendly dictatorships "not imperialist" when China does it? China's just doing business, doesn't really care whose in charge as long as there's stability for business. Or would you prefer China alter course and start propping up terrorist groups like the US does?
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Aug 30, 2013 13:07
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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:China's just doing business, doesn't really care whose in charge as long as there's stability for business. Or would you prefer China alter course and start propping up terrorist groups like the US does? Now you're really being hyperbolic. If you're talking about Al-Nusra as I assume, then for one thing, the US is at least intending to keep military aid out of their hands, and for another, the arms have been held up so much that the rebels are saying that they haven't even gotten any yet. Or do you consider all of the rebels "terrorists?" Oh, by the way, China's most famous current client state just machine-gunned 12 entertainers for "violating pornography laws." But hey, whatever makes things stable for business.
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Aug 30, 2013 13:23
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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:China's just doing business, doesn't really care whose in charge as long as there's stability for business. Or would you prefer China alter course and start propping up terrorist groups like the US does? China can't "alter course" in this way, the potential of it spectacularly backfiring would be too great. Right now, nobody gives a drat about Tibet or the unrest created by the Muslim population in the Western provinces of China. Just a rare footnote then and when in our Media. If China starts propping up terrorist groups, lots of (mostly US, I assume) money would end up in China to foster this unrest into something more extreme. If China doesn't want it's Western parts to errupt into open violence, it has to be very careful in what tactics it can and can't deploy on the international stage.
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Aug 30, 2013 13:24
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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:China's just doing business, doesn't really care whose in charge as long as there's stability for business. Or would you prefer China alter course and start propping up terrorist groups like the US does? So China's constant propping up of North Korea is "just about business" and has nothing to do with keeping a friendly client state nearby for geopolitical reasons.
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Aug 30, 2013 13:36
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:So China's constant propping up of North Korea is "just about business" and has nothing to do with keeping a friendly client state nearby for geopolitical reasons.
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Aug 30, 2013 13:43
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So what's all that AA stuff about then BM? Looks unsubstantiated.
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Aug 30, 2013 13:45
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I've just been sent photographs with the munitions linked to the recent attack, but what's special and exclusive to my blog is they've been measured The above measurement reinforces the notion it was fired from an Iranian Falaq-2, as it uses a rather unique size of ammunition, 333mm, which the above rocket would be a good fit for.
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Aug 30, 2013 13:48
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Plavski posted:So what's all that AA stuff about then BM? Looks unsubstantiated. My main question would be where's the rocket remains? Chemical rockets and missiles don't explode like a normal missile, so you'd expect a poo poo load of debris, and I'm sure the local would have definitely filmed the remains of SCUDs and FROG-7s. Seems like a load of bullshit to me.
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Aug 30, 2013 13:49
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Thanqol posted:Because it sets a precedent. China is a dictatorship and does good business with dictatorships. If the UN gets used to blowing up dictatorships every time they do something horrifying then eventually China starts getting locked out of global alliances and becomes isolated in a world that buys into the US's cultural assumptions about leadership. No one is locking China out of global relations and the industrializing third world countries are benefiting more from Chinese aid than from assistance from anywhere else. The developing world couldn't care less about waving an American flag. quote:So China's constant propping up of North Korea is "just about business" and has nothing to do with keeping a friendly client state nearby for geopolitical reasons. No one wants a collapse of the NK regime because no one wants to pay for the massive humanitarian crisis that will be the result. quote:How is propping up friendly dictatorships "not imperialist" when China does it? They're not exporting Chinese culture, putting Chinese military on foreign soil, and China isn't siphoning profits/surplus from their foreign investments back into China, or declaring ownership of foreign resources. quote:Oh, by the way, China's most famous current client state just machine-gunned 12 entertainers for "violating pornography laws." But hey, whatever makes things stable for business. Yeah. Kim Jung Un's possible ex girlfriend, we actually don't know if they were ever a couple because the woman everyone thought was her was someone else, was possibly murdered because she and a theater group were possibly running an underground gangbang porn studio. Because that's something the wife of a high ranking military official in North Korea would do in North Korea Sounds completely plausible. Zuhzuhzombie!! fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Aug 30, 2013 |
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Aug 30, 2013 13:53
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Sorry, hard to follow this thread and all of the hundreds of post within a few days. I saw as recently as two pages ago that people are advocating the bombing of chemical weapons sites. Isn't that dangerous?
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Aug 30, 2013 14:03
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Brown Moses posted:I've just been sent photographs with the munitions linked to the recent attack, but what's special and exclusive to my blog is they've been measured Jesus christ the one picture shows the guy measuring the munition in his bedroom. Why not, I guess?
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Aug 30, 2013 14:09
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Doctor Butts posted:Sorry, hard to follow this thread and all of the hundreds of post within a few days. I saw as recently as two pages ago that people are advocating the bombing of chemical weapons sites. Isn't that dangerous? Nah. We're gonna keep the bad guys from getting hold of the unsecured chemical weapons by
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Aug 30, 2013 14:12
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No, I mean, doesn't bombing the facilities risk releasing the chemical agents in the area?
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Aug 30, 2013 14:23
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Doctor Butts posted:No, I mean, doesn't bombing the facilities risk releasing the chemical agents in the area? The chemical weapons storage sites are not going to be targeted for this reason. So the UK is out and the US seems to be slowing its roll while France seems pretty set on a strike. Does France have the ability to do the same sort of standoff strikes that were being discussed earlier if they go it alone?
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Aug 30, 2013 14:30
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Doctor Butts posted:No, I mean, doesn't bombing the facilities risk releasing the chemical agents in the area? Yeah, it does. But as I understand it they are going to target military installations rather than places where weapons actually are for that reason. At least that's the sense I got from the House of Commons debate yesterday. That does mean that they'll still have the weapons after the attacks, so there's nothing stopping them using them then. Would the US and France really want to get into a situation where the only option is to escalate? I don't think so, and if not, Assad'll basically have a free hand to do whatever he likes after the initial strikes.
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Aug 30, 2013 14:33
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News roundup for y'all: http://gawker.com/did-assads-son-write-a-facebook-post-daring-americans-1225087105 quote:Early Wednesday morning, someone claiming to be Hafez Assad, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's 11-year-old son, wrote a Facebook post daring Americans to attack Syria. "I just want them to attack sooo much, because I want them to make this huge mistake of beginning something that they don't know the end of it,” part of the post reads. But is the profile real? There's strong evidence that it is.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...d814_story.html quote:“There’s a broad naivete in the political class about America’s obligations in foreign policy issues, and scary simplicity about the effects that employing American military power can achieve,” said retired Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, who served as director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the run-up to the Iraq war, noting that many of his contemporaries are alarmed by the plan. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/29/obama-refused-to-send-gas-masks-to-syria-opposition-for-over-a-year.html quote:Following the harrowing attack that left more than 1,300 dead and more than 3,000 injured in East Ghouta and other Damascus suburbs, the Obama administration is contemplating a strike on the regime of Bashar al-Assad. But Syrian civilians are still trying to cope with the tragedy and treat the wounded, who include scores of children caught sleeping when the gas was dispersed. The attack zone has a fatal shortage of gas masks, chemical-weapons protection gear, and the nerve agent antidote atropine; civilians and activists have been forced to resort to crafting makeshift masks out of everyday household items.
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Aug 30, 2013 14:35
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I really hope Obama cools his heels and does not go it alone on this. While the alleged chem attacks are bad, I do not believe it is the US's role to act alone in the way Obama is reported to be thinking. I mean this is exactly the same thinking, well close to exact, that could be used by the US or other states to bomb the poo poo out of Iran.
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Aug 30, 2013 14:44
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This video has been posted online showing an armed group taking apart one of the variants of the munitions linked to the alleged CW attack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSBcbNUf7gk In my blog post on it, I detail why I think we're dealing with a high explosive and a "other" variant of the same munition. It's really amazing how much you can find out about a totally unique and unidentified munition via Youtube.
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Aug 30, 2013 14:54
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Brown Moses posted:It's really amazing how much you can find out about a totally unique and unidentified munition via Youtube. What's more amazing is that you're wasting all this time examining Syrian munitions when your youtube analysis skills could be put to better use sifting through the countless videos of Miley Cyrus' twerking episode. Hell, you'd never need to crowdfund again - 25m hits per blog post!
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Aug 30, 2013 15:00
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Speaking of Youtube, here I am on Truthloader talking about chemical weapons, and some of the nonsense being spread on the internet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhtsJJfdOSg
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Aug 30, 2013 15:04
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Libluini posted:Weirdly enough, a small majority of Germans are actually in favor of a military intervention in Syria: 42% in favor, 41% against and the rest is undecided. Of course, a vast majority is against German involvement, too. So the official opinion is something like: "Someone should do something, but please without us.". Between this and the UK's likely vote of support of action in the UN despite being blocked in the parliament from doing so, I think Europe is ready to retire.
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Aug 30, 2013 15:28
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I'm glad that on the issue of chemical weapons the noble vanguards of western Europe can unite to say 'eh, someone should do something there...'
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Aug 30, 2013 15:35
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Zephro posted:Because the Cold War was all about fighting little proxy wars (sometimes cold, sometimes hot) elsewhere in the world. Russia and Syria are aligned for the same reason that Iraq and America used to be aligned: to oppose the other's influence in the region. Syria has always been a key element of the Asia-Europe trade route. The Suez Canal has changed things a bit, there's a trade corridor between Basra, Damascus and Beirut. The Lebanese part of the Bekaa valley is one of the craziest places in the world, where you can buy literally anything from roadside stalls due to the sheer volume of land traffic going through. There are lines of yellow trucks gathering every day in Damascus before they set off towards Beirut, and I remember counting around a hundred every morning. Should something go insanely wrong with the Suez canal, Syria will play a great role.
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Aug 30, 2013 15:39
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Tezzor posted:Yes it does. Joe Biden called it an impeachable offense once. Joe Biden also advises firing a shotgun into the air. The President does not need Congressional approval to launch a military attack., Libya showed that rather nicely. Besides Congress doesn't have the balls to do anything under the War Powers Act because they know it would most likely get bounced in court. That and the Courts have said they won't intervene, since Congress can do something if they want too.
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Aug 30, 2013 15:42
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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:Because China has a long established history and policy of not being imperialist. China is happy to do business with basically anyone and without strings attached. The US goes and leaves a mess in its wake, and China swoops in, more than happy to do business again with whoever's in charge. No demands on other nations and how they conduct themselves domestically. I think the people of Vietnam and the Philippines would disagree, particularly in regards to a certain nine-dotted line.
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Aug 30, 2013 15:53
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Tatum Girlparts posted:I'm glad that on the issue of chemical weapons the noble vanguards of western Europe can unite to say 'eh, someone should do something there...' And the US and France will fix the situation by cruise missiling it.
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Aug 30, 2013 15:53
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The Newman posted:And the US and France will fix the situation by cruise missiling it. Don't forget Denmark.
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Aug 30, 2013 16:01
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gfanikf posted:Joe Biden also advises firing a shotgun into the air. The President does not need Congressional approval to launch a military attack., Libya showed that rather nicely. Libya was also illegal. e, substantiation: Section 1541(c) of the War Powers Act states that the extra-Congressional war-making rights conferred by the statute apply only to “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.” Tezzor fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Aug 30, 2013 |
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Aug 30, 2013 16:07
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Saint Celestine posted:Don't forget Denmark. You forgot Poland!
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Aug 30, 2013 16:08
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It's clear the US doesn't really want to do anything anyway, so why doesn't Obama say he's not going to launch any strike without congressional approval? Then, when it's voted down (or not) he can say "Welp, I guess we're not killing anybody, but we're going to continue our support for the rebels and step up humanitarian aid"? At this point it's not even clear we want a rebel victory...what exactly is in the strategic interests of the US?
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Aug 30, 2013 16:08
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Tezzor posted:Libya was also illegal. The War Powers Act is illegal.
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Aug 30, 2013 16:13
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BeefThief posted:what exactly is in the strategic interests of the US? Deterring chemical weapons proliferation and usage. If NATO is shown to be willing to tolerate chemical warfare, then it will continue and spread.
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Aug 30, 2013 16:15
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Tezzor posted:Libya was also illegal. You do know the reason no one invokes War Powers is because it's super illegal and congress literally would rather have a fake power then follow checks and balances, right?
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Aug 30, 2013 16:15
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