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 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

Pssst. You sort of ignored the rest of that post to try and score some cheap points and detract from the matter at hand.

I would address your point but you still haven't given any reason why we should do anything to intervene (you know, the same question I've been asking you for quite some time)

In Africa or in Syria? France has finally broken down and admitted that thy needed to step in in Africa, it only took the destruction of millions of lives and thousands of years of history to do it.

My fundamental position is that if we can stop these people's suffering, somehow, do we not have a moral responsibility to do so? I grant my views and experiences cloud my objectivity on this, but so far 'it will be costly in lives and material, and could possibly advance the goals of our enemies' is your rebuttal, as I see it, and while I agree, and again admit that my objectivity is questionable, on the other side I ask 'Do these things out weigh such a moral obligation, and the potential lives not lost, the homes not burned, the suffering not caused?'. At what point does it become unfair to ask a soldier to risk his life? Do we sit back until full blown genocide starts? While I know that many of you don't care what happens to people you don't know, I have to ask myself "what if it was happening where I live? Wouldn't I want someone to come help us?"

And then:

'And wouldn't I hate the bastards that sat back and let this happen?'


The longer this drags on, the more people suffer and die, the more desperate the parties involved become, the better the odds that something will happen that effects the US directly and arose out of this. Anyone want to argue that is an unfair assessment of the situation?

 CptJake wrote:

We have air dropped munitions especially made to destroy that crap.

Yeah, but we also have to know where it is. ATM we, in all likelyhood, have very little idea. Remember Salman Pak? What a cluster feth that was? How many people got accidentally exposed to god knows what?

 darkPrince010 wrote:
Well, for having grown up in the Troubles I am baffled as to why you seem to treat the idea of the ability for a known terrorist group getting their hands on chemical WMDs so dismissively.

Who said I was being dismissive of the threat? Remember the strawman thing I linked to earlier? You're doing it again. Badly. Maybe you missed my solution to dealing with any stockpiles, its not as if it was a stand alone post or I had to quote it myself later....

 darkPrince010 wrote:
For the aftermath of destroying the chemical weapons caches? I do agree that the decision to fully jump into the conflict needs to be deliberated over, but ignoring the chemical weapons seems like a damned stupid thing to just ignore, and I don't foresee much "aftermath," whether from the Syrian rebels or Russia, for destroying them. Only problem is the time delay of being able to get information of confirmed locations for the strikes.

As for long-term consequences, as long as direct US-Russian conflict doesn't occur (Again, see China vs US in the Korean War), the long-term consequences would be minimal for just destroying the weapons caches. As for interfering, you result in either a quashed rebellion and a North Korea/Iran military police state eating itself from the inside, or you result in a new government with the chance of being sympathetic to a terrorist group.

You're the one calling for boots on the ground, then drones (which wouldn't be able to carry the weapon systems needed to destroy a stockpile of chemical weapons) and you don't seem to consider the possibility of a drone strike with improper weapons releasing the agent instead of destroying it.

So you don't think that Russia would have much reaction to you destroying an ally's stockpiles of WMDs? Even if he doesn't use them they are still a potent psychological weapon. Weakening Assad and hastening his downfall isn't something that I'd imagine the Russians would be thrilled with - he owes them money for weapons, he has a port that they need etc. You're also ignoring Iran and their likely reaction that I mentioned above too.
Its a damn sight more than a chance - look at what happened in the Lebanon which borders Syria. Hizbollah is the de facto government in large parts of the country. Do you honestly think that if the FSA ousts Assad that their best groups (who have ties to AQ) won't be rewarded, or be able to extract what they want by force? Once again, you're trying to see things as black and white instead of varying shades of dark grey were there is no good outcome for intervention.

 darkPrince010 wrote:
Well, sitting back and just letting them use the chemical weapons certainly won't save lives in the short term, and so far you seem to be full of a great deal of conjecture as to the supposedly-vast loss of life resulting from a military intervention. I guess at that point it boils down to whether you think saving the life of any number of foreigners is worth the life of an American soldier.

And invading a country involved in a civil war isn't going to help save many civilian lives either, in the short or long term. Especially when you'll be blamed for every civilian death because you interfered in a matter that is not your concern.

 Ouze wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
[Ouze you misunderstand, they have an absolute right to their opinion about U.S. foreign policy, and I have the right to call their position out of the hogwash it is.

Did I misunderstand? You don't appear to couch your argument in that someone's made a factual error, simply that their lack of military experience makes it "hogwash"

To which I respond that, if you are in the military, you generally will have no special perspective into this discussion to offer over a non-military citizen. Being a grunt (and I mean that respectfully, as most of the military types on this site I think would generally be considered grunts, not generals) doesn't give you insight into into WHY we should fight, only how, and even then only limited to whatever is within your purview.

And if you think about it, you already know this is true. When you call the cable company to tell them the cable is out, you wouldn't accept them telling you that you're not qualified to hold that opinion because you're not a networking expert; it's an appeal to authority fallacy and especially broken in that unless you work for State or whatever, there isn't even any actual authority.

My being in the military or not has nothing to do with my opinion of the people screaming for blood in some other useless hell hole are idiots. That opinion's easy enough to form on one's own.

 Ouze wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
adding another useless war for useless people in a part of the world we're openly despised helps no one except do gooders who will be egging us and calling us child murderers for the war they demanded the day after we get boots on the ground.

Is this a thing that has actually happened, post-Vietnam? Like, in a meaningful way? Because I have really seen the contrary, festishistic hero-worship, especially post 9/11. /quote]

I've certainly seen it. Not sure what your standard for "meaningful" is.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
In Africa or in Syria? France has finally broken down and admitted that thy needed to step in in Africa, it only took the destruction of millions of lives and thousands of years of history to do it.

My fundamental position is that if we can stop these people's suffering, somehow, do we not have a moral responsibility to do so? I grant my views and experiences cloud my objectivity on this, but so far 'it will be costly in lives and material, and could possibly advance the goals of our enemies' is your rebuttal, as I see it, and while I agree, and again admit that my objectivity is questionable, on the other side I ask 'Do these things out weigh such a moral obligation, and the potential lives not lost, the homes not burned, the suffering not caused?'. At what point does it become unfair to ask a soldier to risk his life? Do we sit back until full blown genocide starts? While I know that many of you don't care what happens to people you don't know, I have to ask myself "what if it was happening where I live? Wouldn't I want someone to come help us?"

And then:

'And wouldn't I hate the bastards that sat back and let this happen?'


The longer this drags on, the more people suffer and die, the more desperate the parties involved become, the better the odds that something will happen that effects the US directly and arose out of this. Anyone want to argue that is an unfair assessment of the situation?

Stop obfuscating, you know I meant Syria. That's what we've been talking about. You keep bleating on about something needing to be done - yet you have no solution, much less a reason as to why the US has to get involved.

Your attempts to turn this discussion into a war of attrition whereby you simply restate your position, attempt to score minor points, and distract from the actual discussion is not going to work. I'm still waiting on answers to my questions, so maybe you'd care to put the effort into that instead of trying to look for minor threads in my posts to tug and hope that they're lose.

I'd have to think that in the last few years, a military member being egged and called a child murderers would be a national news story, on Fox if nowhere else.

On topic, though, I haven't really see anyone "screaming for blood" ITT.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

I've certainly seen it. Not sure what your standard for "meaningful" is.

Ironically, those same people would be the first ones to scream for you to save them if a war broke out on US soil.

That said, it really depends on where you are. The US is funny that way.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 darkPrince010 wrote:
Well, for having grown up in the Troubles I am baffled as to why you seem to treat the idea of the ability for a known terrorist group getting their hands on chemical WMDs so dismissively.

Who said I was being dismissive of the threat? Remember the strawman thing I linked to earlier? You're doing it again. Badly. Maybe you missed my solution to dealing with any stockpiles, its not as if it was a stand alone post or I had to quote it myself later....

Well, do you mind linking to it again since I've combed over the entire thread, again, and still can't find anything about your proposed solution?

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 darkPrince010 wrote:
For the aftermath of destroying the chemical weapons caches? I do agree that the decision to fully jump into the conflict needs to be deliberated over, but ignoring the chemical weapons seems like a damned stupid thing to just ignore, and I don't foresee much "aftermath," whether from the Syrian rebels or Russia, for destroying them. Only problem is the time delay of being able to get information of confirmed locations for the strikes.

As for long-term consequences, as long as direct US-Russian conflict doesn't occur (Again, see China vs US in the Korean War), the long-term consequences would be minimal for just destroying the weapons caches. As for interfering, you result in either a quashed rebellion and a North Korea/Iran military police state eating itself from the inside, or you result in a new government with the chance of being sympathetic to a terrorist group.

You're the one calling for boots on the ground, then drones (which wouldn't be able to carry the weapon systems needed to destroy a stockpile of chemical weapons) and you don't seem to consider the possibility of a drone strike with improper weapons releasing the agent instead of destroying it.

So you don't think that Russia would have much reaction to you destroying an ally's stockpiles of WMDs? Even if he doesn't use them they are still a potent psychological weapon. Weakening Assad and hastening his downfall isn't something that I'd imagine the Russians would be thrilled with - he owes them money for weapons, he has a port that they need etc. You're also ignoring Iran and their likely reaction that I mentioned above too.
Its a damn sight more than a chance - look at what happened in the Lebanon which borders Syria. Hizbollah is the de facto government in large parts of the country. Do you honestly think that if the FSA ousts Assad that their best groups (who have ties to AQ) won't be rewarded, or be able to extract what they want by force? Once again, you're trying to see things as black and white instead of varying shades of dark grey were there is no good outcome for intervention.

Decent point, although I doubt Russia wants to remain too closely associated with a country known to use chemical weapons. However, the potential loss of life from terrorist activities coming from an AQ-aligned post-Assad government still seems like you're inflating your estimate compared to the loss of life that has occurred, and will continue to occur, if we don't attempt to neutralize the Syrian government response in a similar way to how we handled Libya. There are probably no "good" outcomes to getting involved, but quite frankly the outcome occurring today, right here and now in Syria, seems to me to be far worse.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 darkPrince010 wrote:
Well, sitting back and just letting them use the chemical weapons certainly won't save lives in the short term, and so far you seem to be full of a great deal of conjecture as to the supposedly-vast loss of life resulting from a military intervention. I guess at that point it boils down to whether you think saving the life of any number of foreigners is worth the life of an American soldier.

And invading a country involved in a civil war isn't going to help save many civilian lives either, in the short or long term. Especially when you'll be blamed for every civilian death because you interfered in a matter that is not your concern.

Source, for both points? Because I'm pretty damned sure if the US had actually involved itself in Rwanda instead of sat back and "just let it handle itself" then the civil war there would have been recorded as a fething war, not a genocide.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

Stop obfuscating, you know I meant Syria. That's what we've been talking about. You keep bleating on about something needing to be done - yet you have no solution, much less a reason as to why the US has to get involved.

Your attempts to turn this discussion into a war of attrition whereby you simply restate your position, attempt to score minor points, and distract from the actual discussion is not going to work. I'm still waiting on answers to my questions, so maybe you'd care to put the effort into that instead of trying to look for minor threads in my posts to tug and hope that they're lose.

I'm actually sort of mulling it over. As I said, your position has merit and I'll sit here and consider it. Your answer about the chemical weapons though, still does not have a workable answer, as I pointed out, palming it off on Israel is unlikely to succeed no matter how much air support and intel we provide. Jihadin had a much better idea, but we'd need very accurate intel on the munitions, their storage, etc. I like the airstrikes idea, but we'd need to be absolutely sure that it wouldn't make the situation worse, which is what we failed to do at Salman Pak.

It's a thorny issue, and I can understand the reluctance of many Americans to potentially get burned by opening up another can of worms. To which I would say this.

If there were a referendum taken here to support a UN or NATO coalition takeover of Syria, I would vote in favour of it. I'm not convinced that the US should undertake such an action alone, or that support of either side in the civil war would be conducive at this point in time.

No, if we're going in, we take whole goddam place, and impose democracy and law and order. Put it under direct UN rule for a period of twenty years, and get the greatest minds throughout the West to help redesign and rebuild it. Put in place the schools, the hospitals, the law courts, the organs of Government. Train an army, codify the separation of powers, institute a police force that is the servant of the people.

Put it under the silk clad mail fist of democracy and freedom, and I think that whilst there may be some losses to home grown terrorists, they would be less than if we supported either side.

If you educate in the main curriculum what the last Government did to its people (gas, war, dragging people away in the night) over a long enough period, you cut off the youth support. Set regular goals for passing power back to the people at certain clearly defined steps, and then you'll find that people learn to trust the word of your occupation, and that you'll withdraw when you say you will. That again reduces the whole, 'fight the outsider' complex, as long as they can see clear progression towards regaining control of their own territory.


I myself would gladly take up arms in the advancement of such a goal. Not to secure oil supplies, the profits of various corporations with large lobbying funds, or to support one of two corrupt and murderous sides in a civil war. But to aid an international effort to end a war and the deaths of innocent people through the establishment of a real democracy?

Definitely.



Oh, and for everyone mocking the Baron for his experiences and doubting his word, you're half right. Yes, you shouldn't believe what people say blindly, but on the other hand, neither should you disregard a reasonably believable statement without any good counter-factual evidence.
There have been plenty of PMC's over the years, and here in England, I believe most of them have their offices opposite barracks to recruit soldiers who have just been made redundant. Be it working as a guard on a shipment going past Somalia, to private security in Iraq, there are plenty of soldiers who put their only real skills to good use to earn a living in ways that aren't connected to national governments.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:


Absolutely, the military serves a purpose but our defense budget is so hilariously oversized right now it's not even funny, adding another useless war for useless people in a part of the world we're openly despised helps no one except do gooders who will be egging us and calling us child murderers for the war they demanded the day after we get boots on the ground.

We agree, I would much rather see less of the 'world police' and the military budget cut in half, the funds turned to universal healthcare in America.

This should be telling us something:

If this turns out to be true, we will have to respond. We've flat out said we would use force, that line was drawn.

Now, the type of force is up for debate. I'd say it'll most likely be concentrated missile strikes on the facilities that we know harbor the NBC weapons. We may have our B-2's fly in to attack their air defense facilities, and then use our more conventional aircraft in targetted strikes as well.

If we put any boots on the ground, it'll be SOF forces that'll be securing the NBC weapons.

 Ketara wrote:

Oh, and for everyone mocking the Baron for his experiences and doubting his word, you're half right. Yes, you shouldn't believe what people say blindly, but on the other hand, neither should you disregard a reasonably believable statement without any good counter-factual evidence.
There have been plenty of PMC's over the years, and here in England, I believe most of them have their offices opposite barracks to recruit soldiers who have just been made redundant. Be it working as a guard on a shipment going past Somalia, to private security in Iraq, there are plenty of soldiers who put their only real skills to good use to earn a living in ways that aren't connected to national governments.

In all fairness to them , rather than starting as a soldier, I started as an on site tech, and got to discover that things like front lines and rear areas are somewhat hazy these days. After that I went to work for a Native American Casino and then on to my own tech firm. Which then collapsed in 2008 and led to my current situation.

And I don't get specific about my life posting on online chat rooms and forum threads. It's bad enough so many of you know my real name as is.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

We agree, I would much rather see less of the 'world police' and the military budget cut in half, the funds turned to universal healthcare in America.

This should be telling us something:
*carrier snipped*

That does include LHDs which are actually amphib assault ships rather than 'true' carriers. Having been aboard Boxer, I still wonder how she'd do in a rough sea. Seems to me those doors would come right off if a wave hit her the wrong way.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
This should be telling us something:

it does - that the USA is AWESOME.

 Ouze wrote:

it does - that the USA is AWESOME.

And that Congress dictates they have at least 11 carriers. Which is a bit overkill in my opinion, but, hey. Biggest fleet on Earth.

That is really old as well, since 3 of those carriers are no longer in active service.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
That does include LHDs which are actually amphib assault ships rather than 'true' carriers.

It does it even-handedly, though - the HMS Ocean is included, which is a troop & helo carrier.

Also, I prefer this image more:



because it really hammers home that carriers, in a way, are like America's Wang, floating about, showing everyone.

 Ouze wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
That does include LHDs which are actually amphib assault ships rather than 'true' carriers.

It does it even-handedly, though - the HMS Ocean is included, which is a troop & helo carrier.

Also, I prefer this image more:

*snip*

because it really hammers home that carriers, in a way, are like America's Wang, floating about, showing everyone.

And it's bigger then everyone else's as well.

Read all five pages and did not see a good or compelling reason to have "Boots on the ground" in Syria. I can argue from a strong position on "NO" why we should not go. Like a few others on here I have been in the "Box" and "Embrace the Suck". Before someone does offer a good reason why should we go in I remind you how little you all know what occurs on deployments. Example would be the Afghan hospital thread awhile back.

 Ouze wrote:
As sad as thinking only soldiers have the right to an opinion on US foreign policy?

Certainly as sad as tinfoil Israeli conspiracies. I hope people will talk to the UN "police" about the nerve gas.

I'm very much okay with a little bit of world policing.

 Jihadin wrote:
Read all five pages and did not see a good or compelling reason to have "Boots on the ground" in Syria. I can argue from a strong position on "NO" why we should not go. Like a few others on here I have been in the "Box" and "Embrace the Suck". Before someone does offer a good reason why should we go in I remind you how little you all know what occurs on deployments. Example would be the Afghan hospital thread awhile back.

I can't say that I'm unhappy to have missed that thread.

Jihadin, let me say again that I like your airstrike idea. Let me ask you then, assuming that the chemical weapon issue is a viable threat, how would you, personally, go about planning this op? I've sat here and considered it (and calmed down a bit from my initial state of agitation) and I don't see palming it off on Israel like Dread suggests to be a viable plan, for a variety of reasons, but your airstrike idea smells viable.

If they are using nerve agents, Send in the drones.

 Monster Rain wrote:
Send in the drones.

I'm not entirely sure that even a reaper drone has sufficient firepower in this case. We may be looking at several hardened facilities.

We could send more than one, yes?

 Monster Rain wrote:
We could send more than one, yes?

Well, reaper can be rigged to carry a JDAM, but I'd like to hear Jihadin's thoughts on this.

Airstrike. Drone Strike. Establish a "No FLy" over Syria to prevent that option of delivery of Assad. Espacially NO FLY of everyone 10 miles away from the russian naval base. I'm leaning more to Drone Strike since the Turkish fighter that was shot down a few months ago by syrian forces was equipped with a ALQ 144 system version for jet fighters by a SA missile

I also want to mention that seems a lot of people have forgotten. Saddam gassing the Kurds in Northern Iraq and in response the UN (I believe) establish the no fly zone there because of it.

The Kims in N. Korea have been killing millions of their own people for decades (through pogroms, enforced food "shortages" and pure idiocy) and nobody seems to get their panties in a bunch over it enough to invade; I wonder why that is?...... Oh yeah, China.

Moral righteousness < fear of bigger kid = bully.

Saddam didn't have WMD, remember?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 agnosto wrote:
The Kims in N. Korea have been killing millions of their own people for decades (through pogroms, enforced food "shortages" and pure idiocy) and nobody seems to get their panties in a bunch over it enough to invade; I wonder why that is?...... Oh yeah, China.

Moral righteousness < fear of bigger kid = bully.

That simple is it?

 agnosto wrote:
The Kims in N. Korea have been killing millions of their own people for decades (through pogroms, enforced food "shortages" and pure idiocy) and nobody seems to get their panties in a bunch over it enough to invade; I wonder why that is?...... Oh yeah, China.

Moral righteousness < fear of bigger kid = bully.

There comes a point where if you're killing more people than you save in a war, starting it is probably not a good idea.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:


Absolutely, the military serves a purpose but our defense budget is so hilariously oversized right now it's not even funny, adding another useless war for useless people in a part of the world we're openly despised helps no one except do gooders who will be egging us and calling us child murderers for the war they demanded the day after we get boots on the ground.

We agree, I would much rather see less of the 'world police' and the military budget cut in half, the funds turned to universal healthcare in America.

This should be telling us something:

Actually the "Blue" forces are the last things I'd touch, expeditionary fighting units such as the Marines and rangers serve a purpose even in peace time, indeed I can't remember the last time the Marines weren't combat engaged somewhere globally. Ships and aircraft take time to ramp up and produce, especially top tier ships and aircraft, the "green" forces would be the primary target if I was conducting a par down, with combat experienced veterans being hand picked and trained hard to form training cadres and maintain several expeditionary brigades, as well as say two or three full strength divisions, these men in time of war would be passed out for training the mass influx of bodies then green forces need in a wartime ramp up. By letting experienced veterans control the training, and by expanding the reserves and national guard, we can bring a large active duty force to bear in a hurry without the current mass expensive. The next thing I'd go after is the appropriations programs. With a freaking plasma cutter.

I don't advocate troops on the ground, because the region is a mess and now that chemical weapons have been deployed it gets very complicated and dangerous to deploy troops when WMDs could be used.

However, the US is a great power, still number 1 last time I checked and the US cannot simply go isolationist unless they are willing to surrender their number 1 spot to other nations. Its the reason the US has the worlds largest navy, its not to make US policy makers feel good about having massive floating penis extensions, its because possessing a blue water navy allows you to project your power, its what makes a nation a great power. Command of the oceans is the command of the world. Now if the US simply stops using all that power then whats the point of having it?

I'm digressing but the United States cannot claim to be the leader of the free world if they don't at least do something. Certainly not sending troops in, the US Army and Marine Corps are not the tools for this job but a multinational intervention Lybian style might be better. Take a page from Britain's book, when a nation was getting uppity in the 19th century they would send some naval vessels off their coast. We can do the same park a battle fleet off the coast, fly some sorties, we don't even need to get involved in actual fighting yet.

Edit: Asking other nations to intervene (without us also doing something) is probably the worst thing the US could do, basically saying "We don't have the means of will to actually act like a great power, you do it"