You mean the one without daylight showing through?
ETA: My mistake. I meant the one in post 489.
Sorry if I’m boring you, seeing as how you bring such rock solid credibility to your arguments. Like blog posts from a couple of guys in Holland. Solid gold, fer sure.
Picky, picky, picky.
Well…yeah. Iraq did, in fact, have thing things after all. And used them against their Kurdish population. The dispute though was whether they had them in the run up to the Second Gulf War. They weren’t all on the same page at that point because the data was fuzzy and disputed.
In THIS case, however, the only ones really talking about rebels or terrorists trying to do some sort of convoluted false flag operation to bring the US into the fight against Assad are…well, Syria, Russia and Iran. And those who are buying what they are peddling. Everyone else in the international community is pretty much solidly behind the obvious conclusion that Syria did it. There seems to be less vocal support for Russia being involved, though I think most are concluding that they were complicit if nothing else.
Pretty hard to get away from. They made us a deal, and Obama bought it. They would be the guarantors, they would verify the destruction. Had it worked, it would have been an adroit and intelligent diplomatic move. In hindsight, it was a blunder. So it goes.
So, Obama made a smart play that didn’t work. If Russia were truly “on board”, had done what they pledged to do, we would likely have a better situation. However brief.
Getting at, Syria is such a barb wire horrorshow, even really smart guys fuck up. Obama is a very smart man who is studied and informed, Trump thinks Bismarck is a pastry. Are we given to have great confidence in a rich loudmouth lout? On the basis of his experience, intelligence, and breadth of knowledge? Or is it some native gift, some form of genius he was born with? Signs and wonders foretold his birth?
Or is it that thoughtful and intelligent diplomacy has failed, therefore lets try impulsive, useless and dangerous.
One maneuver that might work for Trump, sorta kinda. He could bribe Putin.
“OK, you lose a Mediterranean naval base, you get the sanctions off, a sweet deal with Exxon, couple other goodies. You get on board, Assad goes away, and everybody is open for business.”
Then, after a bit, he can screw him.
I think reasonable people can disagree about what should have been done wrt Syria and the use of CWs. In this particular case, I think Trump’s actions were smack in the middle of what plenty of well informed people think should be done. Obama would have done the same had Putin not stepped in with his plan. Not sure such an action would fly a second time around. HRC would probably have sent more bombs that way.
It’s time to get past “Trump is teh suxor” and evaluate the policy on its face. I would prefer we stayed the hell out, but lots of smart, reasonable people think we did the right thing this time around. And it was rather restrained. We’re not raining bombs down on Assad’s ass everyday now, and it would appear that Mattis is calling the shots. Let’s hope it stays that way.
To attack the Syrian government further at this point means the US will be IS and Al Qaeda’s air force. This is problematic since the US is still technically at war with Al Qaeda. Would Clinton have made peace with Al Qaeda, or just kept bombing everyone and/or launched a ground invasion?
Clinton advocated establishing a No Fly Zone, for one thing. That’s not ground troops, but it’s a major undertaking and risks engagement with Russia.
If by risks with Russia you mean war with them.
Yes, to call the US and UK governments reputable sources is .well… I’m at a loss for words, really.
Hey, if they aren’t smart enough to recruit their own reliable sources of crucial intelligence, like Curveball, that’s their lookout, isn’t it?
So…now what? Let’s not delude ourselves that Trump in any way had to do with the planning of this. I doubt Trump has a plan for what’s next at breakfast let alone with Syria. It’s all going to be on McMaster and maybe a few other NSC members. Tillerson is a useless fop.
I’d just like to say that I love how Mattis’s nickname is “Mad Dog”, and how Mad Dog and McMaster sounds like a mid-1980s detective show starring Daniel Hugh Kelly and Joe Penny. Only on CBS!
But as I noted earlier, this act is only sensible if it’s part of a wider policy. And we’ve seen no evidence that any such wider policy exists or is in development.
You should be as it is a very inane and empty remark. The wide range of observers from the NGOs to 2nd countries all are in agreement.
But the "critical"Left thinking of a certain fringe of the Westerners wants to drink up the obvious strained dezinformatsia from the Russians, the enthusiastic open users of the technique…
Talk about inane remarks.
There has been no investigation, as of yet.
(Bolding mine)
…Also, our very own Okrahoma, for some reason.
It is a war zone, what is inane is to think that the idealized investigation is something that will occur in a multi-sided war zone.
There is plenty of the evidence from the multiple observers and sources. It takes the extraordinary prejudice and delusion to believe the conspiracy theories.
But they have. He’s known as “Knuckleball”.
Would you mind citing them, then?