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President Trump will meet with Defense Secretary Mattis, says decision on Syria strikes coming 'fairly soon'quote:Defense Secretary James Mattis and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, head to the White House on Thursday afternoon to discuss strike options in Syria with President Donald Trump. ... okay.
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Apr 12, 2018 18:33
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| # ? May 23, 2024 16:33 |
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Can't wait for the cliffhanger reveal.
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Apr 12, 2018 18:41
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Office Pig posted:President Trump will meet with Defense Secretary Mattis, says decision on Syria strikes coming 'fairly soon'  that Russia was secretly warned ahead of time, again.
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Apr 12, 2018 18:45
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Office Pig posted:President Trump will meet with Defense Secretary Mattis, says decision on Syria strikes coming 'fairly soon' Whats the point, though? Either hit big and suddenly or dont hit. How will this help anything? Assad has had a couple days to bunker up or disperse whatever is important by now.
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Apr 12, 2018 18:57
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OctaMurk posted:Whats the point, though? Either hit big and suddenly or dont hit. How will this help anything? Assad has had a couple days to bunker up or disperse whatever is important by now. The point is that it's not meant to do much damage, just slap him on the wrist for using the wrong weapons to kill people. The intention isn't to remove him from power, so substantially weakening him would just drag out the war that much longer, and risk pissing off Russia. It's a 'well we have to do something' response. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Apr 12, 2018 |
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Apr 12, 2018 18:59
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OctaMurk posted:Whats the point, though? Either hit big and suddenly or dont hit. How will this help anything? Assad has had a couple days to bunker up or disperse whatever is important by now. This will help because US media personalities will slowly suck off Trump on air if he makes things go boom in Syria. That's loving all this is.
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Apr 12, 2018 19:00
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Herstory Begins Now posted:The US has already killed Russians (as in Russian armed services, not just russian nationals) in airstrikes and, again, nothing happened. It's only not complicated in the sense that what options would they really have for retaliation? Any retaliation risks further retaliation and while the US really doesn't want any conflict blowing up, the US can handle several more escalations of retaliation before losing critical force-projection assets. The US could lose half of its navy and still have the biggest navy on the planet, if Russia loses a ship, much less one of its handful of fully functioning ships it loses a major fraction of it's naval capability. Neo-cons are legitimately insane jfc
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Apr 12, 2018 19:36
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The Russians we killed were acting outside of their official role, giving Russia plausible deniability to save face. Lol if you think we could just start bombing officially uniformed Russians without any sort of consequence
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Apr 12, 2018 19:42
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A Typical Goon posted:Neo-cons are legitimately insane jfc They've had a bit of a resurgence since 2016, which is most visible in that the US is somewhat more willing to call bluffs and to just generally act in an outright unpredictable fashion, though tbh US foreign policy is hyper aggressive and pretty bat poo poo all around, it was just marginally more restrained and kept much, much quieter under Obama. I've been saying since the day the attack in February happened that it's completely batshit that the US killed 300+ russian nationals in a multi-hour bombing run involving almost every type of hardware that the US is currently fielding in the region. IDK if it was meant to be a message, but it certainly communicates a change in guiding philosophies. Now that Bolton is in power the neo-con resurgence is basically as real as it can get. IMO we're only scratching the surface of what happens if the US military realizes how unrestrained it could be. KaptainKrunk posted:The Russians we killed were acting outside of their official role, giving Russia plausible deniability to save face. Lol if you think we could just start bombing officially uniformed Russians without any sort of consequence Deliberately targeting is one thing, accidentally hitting advisors is another and has happened on both sides. Similarly US SOF have been shelled and airstrikes have hit bases SOF were operating out of. That's likely why the advance on their position in February was retaliated against so intensely. Hell that's why you call them advisors, so it doesn't become a casus belli. E: There's a very real and potentially extremely scary question of who exactly is directing US military policy right now. It absolutely does not appear to be Trump in any more than a nominal capacity. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Apr 12, 2018 |
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Apr 12, 2018 19:48
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What happens in Syria if Assad is not overthrown?
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Apr 12, 2018 20:01
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A lot of people will be murdered.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:02
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Orange Devil posted:A lot of people will be murdered. That happens regardless.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:06
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Sinteres posted:Mattis pretty clearly doesn't want to attack Syria. Quite the world we live in, when the "Mad Dog" is the sanest in that whole drat room.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:12
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Sinteres posted:That happens regardless. Oh good, so it doesn't matter then? Arguments against american interventionism are beyond counting. As is the lack of any alternative suggestions.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:15
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lollontee posted:Oh good, so it doesn't matter then? One alternative to violently toppling the regime is not doing that. Maybe intervening earlier in the war would have been a good idea, but we'll never know now. I still think that having diplomatic capital to spend instead of wasting it on other bad faith efforts over the last couple decades could have been helpful in cobbling together a good faith international effort to deal with the problem, but we'll never know if that's true or not either. Invading at this point though, now that Russia's fully engaged, the opposition is beyond radicalized, and the war is nearly over would be idiotic, and isn't happening. Of course we actually have intervened, and occupy a good deal of the country, as does Turkey, so saying we're isolationists now is a bit of a stretch, even if Trump would like to pull out at some point in the future. Arguably if we'd intervened less when it comes to giving rebels just enough assistance to keep them fighting and extend the bloodshed that would have led to a better outcome too, and whether cynically or through good intentioned half measures, we made things worse, though I do think some sort of intervention against ISIS was pretty much mandatory. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Apr 12, 2018 |
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Apr 12, 2018 20:29
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lollontee posted:Oh good, so it doesn't matter then? Colin Powell's famous Pottery Barn rule - you break it, you buy it. It is not in the US's interest to be the one to depose Assad and thus be responsible for what comes afterward. Actually, no one wants to be responsible for what happens after Assad, because it's going to be ugly and messy with lots of people dead and no real stability for at least a generation.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:31
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At no point was intervention going to lead to a better outcome, period.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:32
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OctaMurk posted:Whats the point, though? Either hit big and suddenly or dont hit. How will this help anything? Assad has had a couple days to bunker up or disperse whatever is important by now. It is intended for domestic consumption, hope this clears a few things up about american foreign policy.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:33
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Sitting by and watching this happen isn't really an appealing solution. You know, what with those hundreds of thousands of dead. Not doing anything about it isn't any more morally uplifting if the end result is what we get now.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:36
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lollontee posted:Sitting by and watching this happen isn't really an appealing solution. You know, what with those hundreds of thousands of dead. Not doing anything about it isn't any more morally uplifting if the end result is what we get now. So you believe in the power of the American military to resurrect the dead or ? There's no justice for the dead, so all we can do now is the best with what's left.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:37
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No, I just don't think a regime ought to get away with it. Which is your solution?
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Apr 12, 2018 20:38
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lollontee posted:No, I just don't think a regime ought to get away with it. Which is your solution? Not getting more people killed so you can sleep better at night.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:39
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If you don't like american interventionism, then coming up with alternative solutions would be a good place to start if you want to avoid that result.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:39
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How about interventionism without a chaos president that is even more likely to sellout the nation's future (supposing WW3 doesn't get started instead) than Bush did with Iraq and what that turned into later? Tall ask, I know.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:40
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lollontee posted:If you don't like american interventionism, then coming up with alternative solutions would be a good place to start if you want to avoid that result. I already gave you an answer, it's just not one you like. We're not going to overthrow Assad, so presenting it as something that's inevitable unless someone else comes up with a better idea is a non-existent dilemma. There's every reason to believe he is going to get away with it. The only way he's likely to stop being Syria's leader any time soon is if he steps aside in favor of a less tainted successor he and the base he represents can support who will be better positioned to reunite the areas under occupation.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:43
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Not giving rebels TOWs likely wouldn't have triggered the Russian intervention, speeding up the end of the war and saving lives. So, staying out of it, doing work to mediate it diplomatically, but realizing when the parties are just going to use ceasefires to rearm and regroup or ignore them entirely and wash your hands of the situation entirely.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:43
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lollontee posted:If you don't like american interventionism, then coming up with alternative solutions would be a good place to start if you want to avoid that result. stop pouring weapons into the region would be a good start
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Apr 12, 2018 20:43
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So, alternatives are "Do nothing" or "Iraq 2.0". Which is promising, since we're already at Iraq 1.6 and people keep telling me the war will stop any day now and Assad will bring peace to the country he blew up. Seems likely.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:48
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lollontee posted:So, alternatives are "Do nothing" or "Iraq 2.0". Which is promising, since we're already at Iraq 1.6 and people keep telling me the war will stop any day now and Assad will bring peace to the country he blew up. Seems likely. If you call arming rebels and occupying resource rich parts of the country doing nothing, sure. I feel like I'm being trolled because you seem to think truth justice and the American way is a real thing and that the good guys always win.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:49
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Sinteres posted:If you call arming rebels and occupying resource rich parts of the country doing nothing, sure. Yes, I would.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:50
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Doing something seems like the morally superior choice, except that the tools we available aren't particularly good at making situations like that better.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:53
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lollontee posted:If you don't like american interventionism, then coming up with alternative solutions would be a good place to start if you want to avoid that result. OK. The reason we can't intervene in and actually help the people of other countries is because our economic and political elites would lose money and/or power if we did so. So what we should do is topple our governments and abolish capitalism. Once we've established a system of governance actually based on the principles of freedom, equality and brotherhood (as opposed to paying only lip service to these concepts) we will necessarily already have cut all ties with dictators and other oppressors. If the lack of our money to help prop them up hasn't already brought them down at the hands of their own people, we can step in and give them the final push. Then we can extend a true hand of friendship to the now liberated people and help them attain a free and open society based on human dignity and a future for their children as well. All the other options are about as bad or worse than American interventionism.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:54
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KaptainKrunk posted:Doing something seems like the morally superior choice, except that the tools we available aren't particularly good at making situations like that better. Then come up with something else.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:54
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KaptainKrunk posted:Doing something seems like the morally superior choice, except that the tools we available aren't particularly good at making situations like that better.
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Apr 12, 2018 20:57
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I remember being invested in the Syrian knot for several months when it started, as just another extension of the Arab Spring, before I realized that the rebels had/have no chance of overthrowing Assad, and that the war would trudge on for as long as it has now taken. So I shrugged.
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Apr 12, 2018 21:03
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Orange Devil posted:OK. Assuming an invasion/occupation of Syria is roughly half of what it cost in Iraq, the USA could offer unconditional amnesty to every single refugee of the regime, give them Keynesian make-work jobs, and provide them with free education and healthcare for two generations. And then also do that for a few million current citizens as well. It is difficult to exaggerate how myopic hawkish interventionism is, as policy.
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Apr 12, 2018 21:04
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lollontee posted:Then come up with something else. I mean this quite sincerely: no u
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Apr 12, 2018 21:04
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lollontee posted:Then come up with something else. Stall and avoid committing to anything until a better alternative materializes.
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Apr 12, 2018 21:04
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"Doing something" and having it be a net good would require a fundamental retooling of DoD, the IC, and the goals of American foreign policy on the whole, not to mention probably upending U.S. domestic power structures. Even our most recent intervention against IS was motivated by, in rough order, 1) protecting American interests in Iraqi Kurdistan 2) justifying intervention in Iraq and Syria to counter Russian and Iranian influence that we helped provoke 3) testing out our new murder toys and, at a distant 4th, helping some minority whose plight we've conveniently forgotten once it was no longer useful.
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Apr 12, 2018 21:05
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Willie Tomg posted:Assuming an invasion/occupation of Syria is roughly half of what it cost in Iraq, the USA could offer unconditional amnesty to every single refugee of the regime, give them Keynesian make-work jobs, and provide them with free education and healthcare for two generations. And then also do that for a few million current citizens as well. Yeah but how would American oligarchs make any money off of this though?
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Apr 12, 2018 21:06
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