There was a window for intervention, which would have had substantial international support, before Russia was even on the scene.
LOL. Half a million dead Iraqi civilians resulting from a full scale invasion on a bogus pretext in what will most likely be the largest war crime of the 21st century vs. Putin bombing civilians in Aleppo in order to resist the west shaping another civil war in its interests.
This was weekly stuff for years across the border. I don’t see, for example, tanks shooting at media in hotel rooms yet, or private ‘security’ rocking around the streets playing loud music and shooting to death random drivers. Putin needs to up his game.
[QUOTE=marshmallow]
I bring up Hillary because I’m guessing you have a problem with Obama’s weak response to Russian expansion.
[/QUOTE]
There seems to be some disconnects here. I still don’t get why you bring up Hillary (who I am voting for btw), or why you think that I think that Obama’s response to ‘Russian expansion’ has been ‘weak’. Are you talking about the Ukraine/Crimea? I haven’t criticized Obama about that, and actually think he’s don’t a fairly decent job on that score, walking between the fires.
That seems to have little to do with Syrian and Russian actions in Syria, unless you think that I think we should be shooting down Russian planes or some such…which, I assure you, I don’t. I think we COULD have intervened more strongly in Syria before Russia was asked by that great humanitarian Assad to come help him with his little problem, but that is water under the bridge now, and I can see why it would have been politically touchy to do so, especially with Obama’s own base, and especially after we were ramping down in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He’s a loose cannon, and it’s hard to predict how he would react. He doesn’t seem to have a good handle on his emotions or temper, and seems to act mainly from emotion, which, in someone who will have to sorts of powers an American President has is really, really scary. :eek:
So, in the context of this debate, that means it’s not meaningful to debate when they do stuff like they are doing in Syria because it’s justified by them breaking out of being cowed by the US? I’m trying to understand why you put this part in, to be honest.
I also don’t really see a decline in US power either, not from any sort of quantified position anyway. I see an America that’s back more into careful and thoughtful action, but actual power? How do you figure we are declining on that score? Or do you see the US as static and, what, Russian ‘power’ as on the increase?? I don’t even see China as gaining meaningfully compared to the US from either a militarily, economically or social/political/soft power perspective and that’s certainly a better argument to make than Russia.
There’s a double standard because we Americans hold ourselves to a higher standard than we hold other countries. We consider ourselves the good guys, the shining example to the rest of the world. It’s the source of our moral authority. Other countries look after their own interests while we do what is right.
That’s a rather extreme view, but I think it’s implicit to a lot of the criticism of the US, but internal and external. No one expects Russia to do anything other than further Russia’s interests. The Syrian regime long ago became murderous. It’s not news when they continue their bad behaviors.
[QUOTE=up_the_junction]
LOL. Half a million dead Iraqi civilians resulting from a full scale invasion on a bogus pretext in what will most likely be the largest war crime of the 21st century vs. Putin bombing civilians in Aleppo in order to resist the west shaping another civil war in its interests.
[/QUOTE]
And yet, in Syria, in a shorter time span and with a smaller population is at half a million dead and that’s WITHOUT using things like secondary and tertiary causes of death to get to those figures…that’s flat out dead by 1st cause conflict. If you use a lot of the calculations that were used to calculate related deaths in Iraq in Syria it bumps up the body count substantially…I’ve seen estimates saying it’s over 10% of the population when you start factoring in disease, malnutrition/starvation and other secondary or tertiary causes. That’s out of an initial population of less than 22 million btw.
And you don’t even see that putting ‘in order to resist the west shaping another civil war in its interests’ is just a horseshit handwave and spin, do you? 
You haven’t been paying attention then. Or you are just willing to handwave away Syrian/Assad’s forces and Russian actions while focusing on US purported and real ones.
Good grief.
If you want to compare a couple of weeks in Aleppo with what the USA has done to the region go ahead - I think everyone with common sense knows with whom a near endless series of far greater war crimes lays.
This is a quality post.
One of the more delicate aspects of collapsing the Soviet Union was the perception of global security by the Russians, which is different than how it is perceived by us. The Russians could live with an “independent” Ukraine but not a truly independent / Western Ukraine because it brings the Western threat closer to their doorstep. Historically speaking, the Russians have valid reason to be wary of Western European and American power. And also Japanese power from the East. The United States effectively has Russia encircled – and that was before the U.S. invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States needs to reassess its own self-righteousness.
A related concern is the use of sanctions, which are often viewed euphemistically as “soft power”. To Vladimir Putin, they are anything but soft. They threaten the survival of his regime. Soft power has potentially hard consequences. Using sanctions against some piss-ant little third world power is one thing, but bringing them into effect against a state that can cause real mischief and inflict real pain in return is quite another. Let us remind ourselves: economic sanctions (warfare) were in no small part for the start of World War Two. That was true in Asia with the embargo of Japan and that was true with the onerous terms of reparations with Weimar (and then Nazi) Germany. If we truly intend to use sanctions we’d be ready for the response and had better damn well know where this can lead.
In no way do I defend Vladimir Putin, who is an international thug. But we’ve dealt with and lived alongside dangerous undesirables in the past for very practical reasons. We need a real ‘reset’ and one that, on the one hand, initiates the process of getting Russia to back out of its post 1990 annexations, but also one that hopefully dispenses with this notion that we are a) morally superior to everyone else and b) some sort of omnipotent power that is free from the consequences of trying to impose our own sense of global virtues and justice across the planet.
That would be progress.
I’d suggest that Putin is somewhat proving the latter point, Kerry reduced now without any leverage to asking Putin nicely to please stop.
You do understand that this isn’t just ‘a couple of weeks in Aleppo’…right?
But, let’s say you are right. The US did and does far more war crimes than Syria and Russia combined. We are just the worst of the worst, exactly as you think we are.
That still doesn’t answer why what is and has been happening in Syria both in ‘a couple of weeks in Aleppo’ and the past 5 other years isn’t being talked about as much here on this board or in the news as what those evil US bastards did. That’s the actual question I’m asking, though I understand it’s hard for you to resist US bashing. Try and focus though on what I’m actually asking here. Do you agree with other posters who think it’s just that the US is more news worthy? Or do you actually believe that US war crimes are just so much more henious than what Syria and Russia are and have been doing that it drowns out the news and discussion everywhere else? Or, perhaps that since this is a US message board that’s the answer right there…that in the UK or perhaps ME message boards they are discussing it just as often and we don’t see it because of the centricity of this and other boards? Some combination? I’m sure the evil US one will appeal to you, so that one?
Of course what the US has historically done around the globe is far in excess of Putin’s actions in Syria - why on earth do you think the US is so hated in, for example, most of central and south America: just an unimaginable amount of death in so many nations caused by US-employed actors.
And of course that goes vastly under and misreported - how on earth do you think we get to now with Putin being the monster without history having been constantly airbrushed for domestic US consumption: how can anyone with any level of application to modern history compare the USA in the region with Putin’s actions … it’s infantile.
Americans generally seem to have not a clue - professional men from the Middle east fly planes into New York building for no real reason, it appears - except maybe they ‘hate freedom’.
[QUOTE=asahi]
One of the more delicate aspects of collapsing the Soviet Union was the perception of global security by the Russians, which is different than how it is perceived by us.
[/QUOTE]
Of course, one could point out that the converse is true as well…quite obviously we both view it differently.
The proof, however, is in the actions. When the Soviet Union fell and the Soviet empire disintegrated, NATO didn’t do much of anything. When former Soviet client states ran to NATO to join, we again didn’t do anything to Russia. And until around 2011, the US and even Western Europe got high marks in polls from Russia. It wasn’t until after this time period that, quite suddenly, this fear gripped the Russian people about The West™ threatening and surrounding them.
Same as the first part I clipped…we see it differently. To the US and Western Europe we see it as something we can use to, hopefully and peacefully, express our collective displeasure at some action. Like, oh, say one sovereign state carving out a large piece of another by fiat…and then threatening the rest. Russia might think they have a valid claim to the Ukraine and the Crimea, but the Ukrainians, who were and are a sovereign state (so far) mainly disagree. Certainly the way that Russia went about annexing the Crimea and their subsequent actions in eastern Ukraine should have some sort of ramifications or protest…don’t you think? Or do you think everyone would have been better served just letting Russia do what it liked??
I get that Russia and the US/Europe looks at things differently, but I also think that a lot of the outrage and fear is being manufactured and fanned by Putin et al, and it’s a bread and circuses move to distract the people from a one trick economy that isn’t doing its trick anymore. I’m not sure what the US/Europe could or would have done differently…I doubt it would be acceptable in the US under any administration to do nothing as Russia carved off chunks or maybe the whole of the Ukraine, and while I’m less sure of many Western European nations, I’m pretty sure nations like Poland and other former Soviet client states would be freaking out if we all collectively just let it pass. Sanctions seem like the lesser of evils and the only reasonable thing we could have done. No?
[QUOTE=up_the_junction]
Americans generally seem to have not a clue - professional men from the Middle east fly planes into New York building for no real reason, it appears - except maybe they ‘hate freedom’.
[/QUOTE]
Rather an ironic strawman from someone who thinks the sum total of the issue in Syria is ‘a couple of weeks in Aleppo’. 
I would have to say that, if asked, most Americans, certainly the ones on this board could give a more nuanced answer. I will concede that many Americans are probably as ignorant as you about what’s happening and has happened in Syria, though…which is more to the point.
Looks to me as if we poll worse in the Middle East, according to this. The only country we really poll badly in Central and South America seems to be Venezuela, which is no mystery. Certainly we have done bad stuff though. You might want to look at where Russia is though before making those sweeping statements…note where they are in the region you think we are so hated. They are, however, more well liked in the Middle East, to be sure.
The answer is so obvious, I wonder about your post. Aren’t you one of the ones always hoping to demonstrate liberal hypocrisy?
If my kid gets a cold, I’m a lot more worried about it than when a stranger thousands of miles away gets lung cancer. If my kid disobeys his Mom, that would be a much bigger deal to me than if a kid in Tanganyika commits murder.
If a U.S. President orders U.S. soldiers to do bad things, is it not logical that this would be of far greater concern to U.S. citizens than actions by Uzbekebekistani soldiers? Or by a non-U.S. head of state?
Does this help?
[QUOTE=septimus]
The answer is so obvious, I wonder about your post. Aren’t you one of the ones always hoping to demonstrate liberal hypocrisy?
[/QUOTE]
Not as far as I know…can you point to posts where I"m trying to ‘demonstrate liberal hypocrisy’?? This isn’t really about liberal verse conservative, however, at least not as far as I’m concerned.
Ok…but Iraq and Syria are both approximately the same distance from the US, which I presume is the focus of the analogy.
Yes, another poster made this point up thread and I conceded it could be so. But are other countries and other, non-US message boards or news sources more focused on or equally focused on what’s happening in Syria as what happened in Iraq? I’m not seeing it on the BBC, which is one of the news sources I follow…nor on El Pais, which is another one I follow, nor even on al jazeera, though at least it’s the top story right now. I’m not saying there is zero focus…just that I don’t see the same volume of stories about this or other things that I see or saw about the US, especially Iraq verse Syria wrt discussion and news.
I concede that I don’t belong to any non-US message boards and my news are those sites and CNN mainly, so I might be missing a lot and perhaps there is no difference except one of perception on my part. That’s what I’m trying to find out.
download TuneIn radio to your phone - it’s all free. Search for BBC Radio 4 or al Jazeera or even US NPR - places where intelligent people debate and inform.
Right, but does Russia have missile defense systems in Mexico, Cuba, or Central America? Does it have military bases or ports of calls within a half hour of our territory? That might change our perspective.
Sure, we didn’t do anything – except position our unfettered power and influence more closely to Russia without a buffer zone. What was the purpose of NATO? Why did it exist in the first place? Why did it continue to exist in the post-Soviet era? I’m not necessarily asking because I necessarily think we did anything immoral or illegal or otherwise operate against the spirit of international diplomacy. But again, we look at NATO as protection. Russia looks at NATO and asks “Protection against whom? Didn’t you ‘win’ your little Cold War already?”
I have to ask, what do you mean by “didn’t do anything?” You mean, not imposing sanctions on them? Of course not. But I wouldn’t say we didn’t do anything, or that nothing happened. Germany unified for starters – that by itself is something that would, with good reason, cause Russia to sleep with one eye open, and considering the rise of the far right in Germany now, I could see this becoming a very, very serious flash point in the not-too-distant future.
Was the invasion of Iraq doing nothing?
Was the invasion of Afghanistan doing nothing?
Was the expansion of NATO simply doing nothing?
Were missile defense systems in former Soviet states doing nothing?
I won’t even mention the US intervention in Kosovo. Not that it was wrong - but again, it’s not like nothing happened.
You think that these issues and actions went without protest? I seem to remember a number of protests from Moscow. Not outright invasions of neighboring territory but the wheels were turning long before their police action in Ossetia.
I don’t really agree with your characterization of history. The tensions were always there - and I don’t really know how reliable Russian polls are to begin with.
Again, we agree that we ought to reverse Russia’s territorial acquisitions. But I don’t think we’re going to accomplish shit with the way things are going now. Putin has laid down terms and presented them to the Russian people – classic Russian-style “negotiate-from-strength” brinkmanship. Why is Putin bombing the hell out of Syrian civilians? Because he can. Because it’s a tool that he has in his toolbox, which is to piss all over American power, prestige, and credibility in the Middle East and bring stability under a Russian banner. They’re not done yet - in fact I think Putin’s just getting warmed up. I don’t consider myself an expert on Russia but based on what I do know, I would submit that the Russians have a much, much higher tolerance for pain over their conduct in their own backyard than Americans do fighting for some place they can’t even find if Google geo-locates it for them on a map. More ominously, I would also submit that they are willing to up the ante more – perhaps a lot more. And perhaps a lot more than people at the State Department and Pentagon seem to be prepared for. A lot of red lines have been crossed already, and I bet a lot more will get crossed. Are Americans willing to engage in low-grade nuclear conflict over Ukraine? I think Putin actually is.
Nobody said we had to do nothing, but what does that mean? Is negotiating doing nothing? Is maybe finding an alternative to NATO doing nothing? Is working out resolutions on missile defense doing nothing? Again, imposing crippling sanctions is not necessarily “economic” pressure. It can easily be seen as an act of war.
Comparing Iraq and Syria.
Saddam was a very bad man, but he was under control in 2002, with sanctions, inspections, and overflights. Imagine a hive of dangerous wasps that had been brought under control and were surrounded by a net. Now imagine hitting that hive with a baseball bat, annoying the wasps and breaking the net that had rendered them harmless. Smart idea?
Contrast this with Syria. Are there six main rebel groups or just five? I’ve lost track. Russia, Turkey, and Iran are all involved. Of these the only U.S. ally, Turkey, is operating clearly against U.S. interests. Anyone who claims there is a clear distinction between “good guys” and “bad guys” there, or who thinks they know the solution to Syria’s problems, is probably wrong. In hindsight, rooting for the Baathist dictator al-Assad might have been best as realpolitik (just as the Baathists were the best hope for a stable Iraq in 2002), but that toothpaste is out of the tube now.
No, I didn’t mean any of that. Maybe I misread what you wanted to talk about. If Putin and Assad are such bad guys I figured you wanted the West to do something about it. Like septimus, I thought the underlying reason for the thread was a search for liberal hypocrisy. That is, Dopers don’t want to talk about Syria because it’s an Obama failure, and the worst sort of stereotypical wishy washy liberal failure at that.
I can’t speak for others, but I rarely participate in the sort of outrage threads you say are lacking about Syria. I think the last time I did was two years ago when Boko Haram captured, raped, and impregnated those 200 girls. Many years ago during the Bush admin I did argue about Iraq and Afghanistan a lot here, maybe because there were lots of people to argue against. Plus I had more free time back then and I was younger and more morally righteous. I doubt there’s enough Putin or Assad apologists here to maintain those sort of long trainwreck threads.
For years now political observers have commented on how the world is moving in a multi-polar direction. Depending on one’s persuasion this is presented as a cause of consternation and hand wringing, a looming disaster, or a wonderful celebration. I think you’ve been in such threads in the past saying it’s a bad thing, but maybe I’m mistaken. America has lost control of Latin America, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and China is gearing up in the East. America is either unable or unwilling to meet these challenges to its hegemony. I don’t see any reason to suspect this process will halt or reverse anytime soon.
You mean unilateral U.S. action, right? I wonder how well that would’ve gone over.
Indeed, this is the trend and I think it’s irreversible. The post-WWII Pax Americana, global world order is in decline and not going to change. I won’t characterize that as either good or bad – from our American perspective it’s probably bad and for everyone else less so. I will say that a world in which there is multi-polar competition tends to be dangerous.
That placement is in reaction to US and Israeli planes directly attacking Syrian troops.
Shouldn’t you be concerned about why those attacks happenend?