As for “boots on the ground”, as much as I am against this action, I do trust Obama to not put combat troops into the mess in Syria. I think this will, in fact, be a limited, targeted strike. And it will either do nothing, or possibly make things worse.
If we start helping the rebels, that might shift the tide, or it might just cause more bloodshed while still leaving Asaad in power. He’s got the Russians helping him, and they are probably more motivated than we are to take sides.
Even if it wasn’t we are talking peanuts here in comparison to the rest of the budget. Libya was hardly a dent in our budget and I don’t see anything remotely similar response wise between what we seem to be planning (assuming we do anything at all) in Syria and what we did in Libya. Anyone saying we’d do more in Syria than we did in Libya (not to mention Iraq or Afghanistan) is basically talking out their ass IMHO. Even leaving aside the fact that Obama is the Prez (and not Bush), there is no huge push for more substantial strikes, let along boots on the ground, and more importantly we can see what military assets we are actually moving into the region to gauge what we are planning…and it ain’t a hell of a lot. We are certainly not moving in large numbers of troops and logistics as we did prior to invading Afghanistan OR Iraq.
You are committing the broken window fallacy. Destruction is not good just because it forces you to expend resources to replace the things you destroyed.
Man…this is surreal-Obama is like Lyndon Johnson in 1967 or so (Vietnam): “mebbe if uh bomb them a leetle more…they will see reason”.
We are walking into a trap that will close on us, and sawllow up a few billion$$.
This has got to be one of the stupidest points I’ve yet seen. We haven’t bombed them at all, yet. We aren’t planning to bomb them to make them see reason, we are planning to bomb them as a punitive measure for using chemical weapons, which are prohibited by international law (which, IIRC, Syria is also a signatory too). As to a few billion dollars, well, that sounds like a bargain compared to what Bush cost us…and it’s also a bargain from the standpoint of US policy, considering it will hurt Assad, slap his wrist AND set a precedence for actually standing by international law, all at minimal cost to the US. It won’t change the balance of power in the Syrian civil war (which we don’t seem to want to do, and I agree we should let it play out as it will) other than perhaps making Assad think twice before crossing the chemical weapons on his own civilians line again. Sounds like a win/win to me.
My bad then. Doesn’t invalidate the overall point though…even if they aren’t a signatory it doesn’t mean they can use chemical weapons with impunity. At least that’s how I understand the conventions, though obviously I’m no expert, nor have I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express lately.
They can do whatever they can get away with, and the US can do the same. There are no international police here, and the UNSC isn’t going to step in.
However, there is not doubt that, to the extent international law exists, the US is in the wrong by initiating an unprovoked act of war w/o authority from the UNSC. So, we’re in the same boat with Syria on this, so to speak.
ETA: That was speaking purely from the standpoint of “international law”, not morality. We are not in the same boat, morally.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
ETA: That was speaking purely from the standpoint of “international law”, not morality. We are not in the same boat, morally.
[/QUOTE]
Well, that kind of says something about ‘international law’ then, doesn’t it? Hard to believe though that ‘international law’ puts a country that would attack it’s own citizens with weapons of mass destruction on par with a country that would retaliate against said WMD users, but then international law is kind of an oxymoron in that it doesn’t seem to be much about law OR about being international.
Hardly, since Russia would block any such move. But I fail to see how even with UNSC sanction this would become ‘legal’ in any meaningful sense.
You are right. You are actually much worse – no nation on earth has killed as many innocent people in the last 50 years as the US of A. Start with four million Vietnamese and count UP from there. You may not like the sum total. Doesn’t change a thing.
Part of the goal is to deter future users of chemical weapons. So we won’t truly know whether it made things worse for millions of years, just like GWBush’s adventures in Iraq. I guess I could go out on a limb and say that the Sack of Rome represented a serious setback for the Roman Empire.
If – and ever – current Iraq raises itself from a failed state to something better, it certainly won’t take “millions of years.” But in the meantime we can certainly appraise that Bush’s invasion was a huge fuck-up at best as it made Iraq a “failed state.” Thus what happens in your time-frame will be due to Iraqi’s doing (unless they are invaded again) and nothing more.
So yeah, I think we are fit to judge right now. Or else any and all military misadventure could never be criticized. In our lifetimes anyway…and that is, IMO, absurd.
By sending the bill to the “Arab countries.” (Kerry: Arab countries offered to pay for invasion) Presumable Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Like with Gulf War I, which may even have turned a small profit.
Of course there are other kinds of cost than financial, and one can but laugh at Kerry’s statement: “That’s how dedicated they are at this.” Dedication is not paying for having it done by others. Dedication is doing it yourself.
Isn’t the answer for “Country responsible for the most deaths of innocents in the 1963-2013 period” the People’s Republic of China? R.J. Rummel’s data may be out of date, and difficult to read anyway, but the following graphs seem to bear that out. Table 1. Table 2. His full site on this subject is here. The Necometrics site seems to agree, though it is difficult to parse Mao’s murders within the '63 onward period.
EDIT: The Necometrics link to the U.S. inflicted deaths from Vietnam may be found here. It is considerably less than 4M, though 4.2 million people did lose their lives in the conflict. The various Communist forces were responsible for a lot of the killing too.
Hard to believe though that ‘international law’ puts a country that would attack it’s own citizens with weapons of mass destruction on par with a country that would retaliate against said WMD users, but then international law is kind of an oxymoron in that it doesn’t seem to be much about law OR about being international.
