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 sebster wrote:
Dude, seriously though, we've got 20 million people. Complaining that we lack force projection is a bit silly.

I'm hardly complaining. Australia's force projection capabilities are never one of my top priorities. Simply saying that if you really thought intervention was worth it - and I use "you" here to refer to Australia in general, not you specifically - you'd figure out a way to do it rather than relying on the US to do the heavy lifting.

It likely won't become the next Afghanistan, but if it does collapse will becomes its own unique kind of disaster, with it's own unique set of problems for the rest of the world.

And yeah, maybe that'll happen with or without intervention, but likely intervening or not will shift the odds one way or the other, and possibly by a large amount. The issue is which way they'll move, and that depends on a lot of specifics on the ground. And that's why I react against the 'nope, not never, not again, because of these vague reasons based on what went wrong in some other conflict'. Iraq was a mistake because the reasoning behind it was all high level, geo-political theory stuff, with no attention paid to the realities in the country itself.

People here are making the same mistake, only to come to the opposite conclusion - the reasoning is basically is that they oppose intervention in Syria because they have a generalised world view based on other efforts made at other times.


Note I'm not really arguing for intervention, I was just commenting first on people failing to realise that the US is already giving aid, and then on what I think is fairly faulty reasoning on whether further aid would achieve anything.

Every conflict has its own character, and shouldn't necessarily be judged by the outcome of others, even if there are similarities. We can, however, look at certain patterns and guess as to the likelihood of their repetition. Is there, for example, anywhere in the Middle East where we can point to our intervention in a sectarian struggle and go, "That worked out well"? Libya's really the only decent example of this sort of thing going even half-well, and that's in large part due to Libya having happened so fast that the extremists didn't have time to get their ground game up and running properly.

We also know we're going to get absolutely hammered by the very same people who are sitting there and looking at us expectantly right now the second anything at all goes wrong with an intervention, and something will inevitably go wrong. I like French student protests as much as the next guy, but again, why not let us have a little breather and let the rest of the world take this one? It's fairly small, it's fairly manageable.

There's just no real upside to getting involved more than we are now. Keep funneling cheap, non-American weapons in, by all means, but let's not start with anything more than that.

Looks like Russia has a response.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22688894

Russia says it will go ahead with deliveries of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, and that the arms will help deter foreign intervention.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the missiles were a "stabilising factor" that could dissuade "some hotheads" from entering the conflict.

Russia also criticised a decision by the EU not to renew an arms embargo on the Syrian opposition.

Mr Ryabkov said the move would harm the prospects for a peace conference.

He said the contract for the S-300 missile systems had been signed several years ago.

"We consider these supplies a stabilising factor and believe such steps will deter some hotheads from considering scenarios that would turn the conflict international with the involvement of outside forces," he was quoted as telling journalists.

Russia's envoy to Nato, Aleksandr Grushko, said Moscow was acting "fully within the framework of international law", in delivering the arms.

"We are not doing anything that could change the situation in Syria," he said. "The arms that we supply are defensive weapons."

'We know what to do'

The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says the Russian statement could be seen as an escalation. He says there had been reports that Moscow was holding back on delivering the arms, in exchange for an Israeli commitment not to carry out further air raids over Syria.

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said the Russian missile systems had not yet left Russia.

"I hope they will not leave, and if, God forbid, they reach Syria, we will know what to do," he said.

Russia has repeatedly blocked efforts to put more pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Along with the US, it has been leading efforts to organise an international peace conference on Syria next month.

This really isn't a conflist that we want to touch.

Its Russia playground atm. Leave it alone McCain....you Hothead.....and the rest of the politicians.

Perhaps China would like to intervene in this one?

Perhaps an islamic coalition should sort it out?

But US or UK involvement, no, if our muslim citizenry feel so strongly that we should stay out of the islamic world, lets do so and waste no more lives and no more money on trying to sort out the troubles they need to sort out for themselves.

The West needs a prolonged period of inward focus and infrastructure building and should only go into this sort of thing when there is overwhelming support worldwide for it, instead of suffering condemnation as we have.

Let the rest of the world rely on Russia and China to resolve it's squabbling for a bit. Perhaps they'll do a better job?

I think it'll be nice if someone else does intervene instead of the West. They may bring something new to the table. Failing that all those people who advocate for western intervention, only to start lamenting it the second it happens, can direct their ire elsewhere.

I'm recommending we send brave british islamic preacher Anjem Choudary there at once to act as a mediator.

Lets have a collection for his plane ticket or just parachute him in as an emergency measure.

Then he can return to the UK, at some stage, in the future...

So...where's the "Red Line" at today?

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
So...where's the "Red Line" at today?

Given there is confusion as to whether or not chemical weapons are being used and which side or possibly both sides using them, I'd say we're still not there.

And even if we get there, it is for the UN to organize a task force to deal with it, once the ruling council gives support to it. The US can provide information and offshore logistic support and free Dr Peppers to the Chinese/Russian/Arab League troops who go into to stop the war...

So just big talk then. Gotcha.

To use an American expression, this is going to be a massive cluster feth!

Intervention in Libya led to the trouble spilling over into Mali.

Remember Iraq? It's on the verge of Civil War (again!)

In Syria, you have Hezbollah, Israel, Turkey, Iran, every gulf state with a few dimes to spare, Saudi Arabia et al getting sucked in. What a mess. And they want to give weapons to that lot?

I've said this before but I hope William Hague comes to his senses (highly unlikely) and walks away. When it comes to the Middle East, we've fought everybody from Nazi Germany to Jewish settlers, Arabs to Persians. We were responsible for the creation of Syria, Lebannon and Israel. I think we've done enough damage. Time to walk away.

 dæl wrote:

 Breotan wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Whichever side wins, whichever side we fund or tinker with, we will be blamed and hated by them.

Got news for ya. This is going to happen no matter what we do or don't do. Just accept it.

Well the US sits at the top of a unipolar system where it has far more power than any other state, when the decision was taken to invade Iraq without the backing of the UN Security Council it basically gave up the ability to claim that any authority above itself existed.

Mwahahahaha...

You keep thinking that the UN is some sort of global government that carries the same weight as your government.

And we didn't go in "by our selves".

Ever heard of the coalition of the willing? You know which has 49 participant?

If the authority of the UN was properly recognised then any decision whether to take action or not would rest with the UN and all permanent members of the security council, rather than the US being seen as the superpower which dictates what action will be taken and where.

That was the perception... but go ahead and claim that the use are "the bad guys".

See...this is why many of us are so ambivalent about "being the World's Police".

feth that...

 whembly wrote:

 dæl wrote:

 Breotan wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Whichever side wins, whichever side we fund or tinker with, we will be blamed and hated by them.

Got news for ya. This is going to happen no matter what we do or don't do. Just accept it.

Well the US sits at the top of a unipolar system where it has far more power than any other state, when the decision was taken to invade Iraq without the backing of the UN Security Council it basically gave up the ability to claim that any authority above itself existed.

Mwahahahaha...

You keep thinking that the UN is some sort of global government that carries the same weight as your government.

And we didn't go in "by our selves".

Ever heard of the coalition of the willing? You know which has 49 participant?

If the authority of the UN was properly recognised then any decision whether to take action or not would rest with the UN and all permanent members of the security council, rather than the US being seen as the superpower which dictates what action will be taken and where.

That was the perception... but go ahead and claim that the use are "the bad guys".

See...this is why many of us are so ambivalent about "being the World's Police".

feth that...

Coalition of the willing? I may be wrong but I'm sure that one of those countries was the Dominican Republic and all they contributed was 10 janitors or something like that

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
In Syria, you have Hezbollah, Israel, Turkey, Iran, every gulf state with a few dimes to spare, Saudi Arabia et al getting sucked in. What a mess. And they want to give weapons to that lot?

But there is such choice in who we back in Syria. we could back;
- Assad. We could stand shoulder to shoulder with Iran and Russia in propping up a dictator with a history of oppression, a long list of human rights abuses, and allegation of using chemical weapons
- The Free Syrian Army. They were slitting the throats of captive prisioners, shelling civilian areas and are also accused of eating the hearts of their enemies and of using chemical weapons
- The Al-Queda affiliated militias. Afterall why not stand side by side with the group that has killed thousands in terror attacks and could use the carnage to take weapons to use in other terror attacks.
- No one. We could go in ourselves and have everyone shoot at us

Choices, choices


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 dæl wrote:
If the authority of the UN was properly recognised then any decision whether to take action or not would rest with the UN and all permanent members of the security council, rather than the US being seen as the superpower which dictates what action will be taken and where.

Well if we wait for that then we definitey won't be getting involved on account of Russia's veto power

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
In Syria, you have Hezbollah, Israel, Turkey, Iran, every gulf state with a few dimes to spare, Saudi Arabia et al getting sucked in. What a mess. And they want to give weapons to that lot?

But there is such choice in who we back in Syria. we could back;
- Assad. We could stand shoulder to shoulder with Iran and Russia in propping up a dictator with a history of oppression, a long list of human rights abuses, and allegation of using chemical weapons
- The Free Syrian Army. They were slitting the throats of captive prisioners, shelling civilian areas and are also accused of eating the hearts of their enemies and of using chemical weapons
- The Al-Queda affiliated militias. Afterall why not stand side by side with the group that has killed thousands in terror attacks and could use the carnage to take weapons to use in other terror attacks.
- No one. We could go in ourselves and have everyone shoot at us

Choices, choices

Pretty much sums it up! The only rational explanation for supplying weapons to the opposition is money made from sales, because in terms of a coherent, geo-political objective, there are none.

The only people who are sticking to a coherent political objective, are the Russians and Chinese, because they are long term supporters of the Assad regime. Britain and America are making it up as they go along.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Pretty much sums it up! The only rational explanation for supplying weapons to the opposition is money made from sales, because in terms of a coherent, geo-political objective, there are none.

The only people who are sticking to a coherent political objective, are the Russians and Chinese, because they are long term supporters of the Assad regime. Britain and America are making it up as they go along.

And Russia and China don't really have much regard for human rights etc.
The problem with selling the rebels weapons is the chance of them being used against us at a later date

 whembly wrote:

 dæl wrote:

 Breotan wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Whichever side wins, whichever side we fund or tinker with, we will be blamed and hated by them.

Got news for ya. This is going to happen no matter what we do or don't do. Just accept it.

Well the US sits at the top of a unipolar system where it has far more power than any other state, when the decision was taken to invade Iraq without the backing of the UN Security Council it basically gave up the ability to claim that any authority above itself existed.

Mwahahahaha...

You keep thinking that the UN is some sort of global government that carries the same weight as your government.

And we didn't go in "by our selves".

Ever heard of the coalition of the willing? You know which has 49 participant?

If the authority of the UN was properly recognised then any decision whether to take action or not would rest with the UN and all permanent members of the security council, rather than the US being seen as the superpower which dictates what action will be taken and where.

That was the perception... but go ahead and claim that the use are "the bad guys".

See...this is why many of us are so ambivalent about "being the World's Police".

feth that...

The UN is like our governments in that it assumes the role of a state, by claiming to be the sole authority which dictates what is legitimate use of force. And exactly like our governments it governs by consent. It isn't a government or central authority as such, but acts as one in many ways.

By refusing to wait on a security council resolution the US confirmed the realist model of international relations, in proving that model they have made themselves a cross for their own back. By being at the head of a unipolar system they are the "world's police" as they are the superpower which dictates what conflicts will be intervened in. If you guys didn't want to be the world police you should have allowed the security council to make the decision to act, there would have then existed a shared responsibility between the members. However, by ignoring them the US has made itself a lonely place at the top of the table, by breaking rather than enforcing the rule of international law and by engaging in an illegitimate war there are consequences. The responsibility for the illegitimate war is shared, but the role of being the sole superpower in a unipolar system is the US's alone.

It's an interesting point dael, it unfortunately completely ignores Russia and China showing up all over the globe with a trollface grin and arming the gak out of people we don't like, people with fairly abysmal human rights abuse histories, of course that's very often overlooked in the 'Hey, America is always stamping it's authority all over the world' when the truth of it was more like 'the rest of the world has often called on America to get it's hands dirty and break up shenanigans because of it's huge military and because of other powers reluctance to send their own into the fire'.

It was only Bush jnr and his wacky 'also, lets invade iraq whilst we're on a roll' fiasco that really put America in the dog house with most of the rest of the world. And it's a fair point, the US had touted the UN as the 'world authority' for years and used ignoring it as the basis for identifying bad guys... then they ignored it themselves.

But administrations change and Russian and Chinese influences propping up monsters directly flying in the face of the west doesn't.

We should wait and see how France reacts to Syria. After all, don't they have a historical connection? That worked in Libya and Mali.

Isn't there a "Flush" option? Possible two "Flush" option?

As if we need another reason to stay out of the middle east!

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/28/health/france-coronavirus-death/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

That's right a new deadly virus!

Will people blame America for this too?

 Valion wrote:
I'm hardly complaining. Australia's force projection capabilities are never one of my top priorities. Simply saying that if you really thought intervention was worth it - and I use "you" here to refer to Australia in general, not you specifically - you'd figure out a way to do it rather than relying on the US to do the heavy lifting.

No, seriously, we can't just figure out a way to project force half way across the world. No matter how important we might think intervention was, we can't just jury rig a carrier fleet and be on our way. That kind of capability takes billions of dollars invested over a decade or two.

Now, if the point is that if countries other than the US are going to go about arguing where troops should be deployed, perhaps they ought to develop the capability themselves... well then I agree with you. Such capability should be sought (perhaps not by Australia, because again 20 million people, but the UK, Germany & France could expand their projection capabilities considerably).

Every conflict has its own character, and shouldn't necessarily be judged by the outcome of others, even if there are similarities. We can, however, look at certain patterns and guess as to the likelihood of their repetition. Is there, for example, anywhere in the Middle East where we can point to our intervention in a sectarian struggle and go, "That worked out well"? Libya's really the only decent example of this sort of thing going even half-well, and that's in large part due to Libya having happened so fast that the extremists didn't have time to get their ground game up and running properly.

That's a pretty fair summary.

We also know we're going to get absolutely hammered by the very same people who are sitting there and looking at us expectantly right now the second anything at all goes wrong with an intervention, and something will inevitably go wrong. I like French student protests as much as the next guy, but again, why not let us have a little breather and let the rest of the world take this one? It's fairly small, it's fairly manageable.

Meh, there's a fringe that'll complain about the US no matter what they do. That's the nature of being the biggest kid on the block.

It's a bit of a cop out to claim that your national policy is set by their complaints. It didn't change when they complained about you sending troops in to Iraq, you did what you wanted no matter how many French students shouted angry slogans. And when the French students complained that you weren't in Zimbabwe, well you kept on doing what you wanted.

There's just no real upside to getting involved more than we are now. Keep funneling cheap, non-American weapons in, by all means, but let's not start with anything more than that.

With the recent Russian move that's probably going to be the limit of your intervention, now. I mean, I think more active intervention could resolve the issue much faster, and to the benefit of the more moderate resistance factions, and that'd be nice, but hardly so nice it's worth setting off issues of regional influence with Russia.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
And we didn't go in "by our selves".

Ever heard of the coalition of the willing? You know which has 49 participant?

Holy gak... there's someone on the internet who still pretends the 'coalition of the willing' was anything more than the US, UK, Australia, and a bunch of tiny nations who put their name on the form while sending a trivial number of non-combat troops in order to earn goodwill with the USA (and you could probably put Australia in that last category).

I mean, seriously whembly, are you posting from 2002?

 sebster wrote:

Holy gak... there's someone on the internet who still pretends the 'coalition of the willing' was anything more than the US, UK, Australia, and a bunch of tiny nations who put their name on the form while sending a trivial number of non-combat troops in order to earn goodwill with the USA (and you could probably put Australia in that last category).

I mean, seriously whembly, are you posting from 2002?

Well... who else could've done what we've done?

 whembly wrote:
Well... who else could've done what we've done?

No-one. No other country has such a massively influential economy that they can embark on a pointless, poorly argued overseas adventure and have 49 countries come along just because they want to stay in your good books.

That said, plenty of countries can make form a coalition by making a case that there is a clear and pressing need for engagement and draw in countries by the weight of the moral argument. Hey, your country can not only do that, it's probably better than anyone else at doing it - Korea, Iraq (the first time around) and Afghanistan all featured major countries putting in genuine military commitments simply because you guys were leading a cause that actually made some sense.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
Still say we should stay out of it, let the Muslims make war or peace with each other, we don't need to perpetuate this idea that the west is the problem or the solution. They really need to handle this themselves.

The Muslims need to handle it themselves?

Are you saying that all Syrians are Muslim, and all Muslims should be concerned with events in Syria?

 dogma wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:
Still say we should stay out of it, let the Muslims make war or peace with each other, we don't need to perpetuate this idea that the west is the problem or the solution. They really need to handle this themselves.

The Muslims need to handle it themselves?

Are you saying that all Syrians are Muslim, and all Muslims should be concerned with events in Syria?

None of the above. What I'm saying is that most of the conflicts in that region stem from divisions within Islam, such as Sunni vs Shiite as is the case in Syria. Let them duke it out thunderdome style. "Two sects go enter, one comes out"

 sebster wrote:
No, seriously, we can't just figure out a way to project force half way across the world. No matter how important we might think intervention was, we can't just jury rig a carrier fleet and be on our way. That kind of capability takes billions of dollars invested over a decade or two.

That's true, you cannot kludge a carrier group together. But now we're getting back to the coalition-building I mentioned earlier. France and the UK can both get across the Med.

Now, if the point is that if countries other than the US are going to go about arguing where troops should be deployed, perhaps they ought to develop the capability themselves... well then I agree with you. Such capability should be sought (perhaps not by Australia, because again 20 million people, but the UK, Germany & France could expand their projection capabilities considerably).

It's a bit of a cop out to claim that your national policy is set by their complaints. It didn't change when they complained about you sending troops in to Iraq, you did what you wanted no matter how many French students shouted angry slogans. And when the French students complained that you weren't in Zimbabwe, well you kept on doing what you wanted.

The national policy isn't set by the complaints, it's simply another in a long list of downsides to getting involved.

With the recent Russian move that's probably going to be the limit of your intervention, now. I mean, I think more active intervention could resolve the issue much faster, and to the benefit of the more moderate resistance factions, and that'd be nice, but hardly so nice it's worth setting off issues of regional influence with Russia.

I think we could temporarily benefit the more moderate resistance factions, but short of hand-picking Syria's next government, we really don't know with any certainty who would wind up running the country after the regime's defeat. The Muslim Brotherhood and its ilk have shown they've got the chops to win popular elections in the region pretty easily.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
And it's a fair point, the US had touted the UN as the 'world authority' for years and used ignoring it as the basis for identifying bad guys... then they ignored it themselves.

When did the US tout the UN as the 'world authority'?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Andrew1975 wrote:

None of the above. What I'm saying is that most of the conflicts in that region stem from divisions within Islam, such as Sunni vs Shiite as is the case in Syria. Let them duke it out thunderdome style. "Two sects go enter, one comes out"

I agree the US shouldn't involve itself, but it is way more complicated than "Lol, Islam!"

 Valion wrote:
That's true, you cannot kludge a carrier group together. But now we're getting back to the coalition-building I mentioned earlier. France and the UK can both get across the Med.

Both the UK and France have pretty severe limitations on their ability to keep troops in supply. Remember how everyone kept waiting for the US to commit to the Balkans?

The national policy isn't set by the complaints, it's simply another in a long list of downsides to getting involved.

It's the one that keeps getting mentioned in this thread.

I think we could temporarily benefit the more moderate resistance factions, but short of hand-picking Syria's next government, we really don't know with any certainty who would wind up running the country after the regime's defeat. The Muslim Brotherhood and its ilk have shown they've got the chops to win popular elections in the region pretty easily.

Very true. That said, while I'm no fan of the Muslim Brotherhood, it's interesting how far to the centre they had to move to become broadly popular in Egypt, and how much of their domestic platform is based on populist economic issues. Not saying they're a good government, but they're a long way from the nutters they're often portrayed to be in much Western media.

 dogma wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:

None of the above. What I'm saying is that most of the conflicts in that region stem from divisions within Islam, such as Sunni vs Shiite as is the case in Syria. Let them duke it out thunderdome style. "Two sects go enter, one comes out"

I agree the US shouldn't involve itself, but it is way more complicated than "Lol, Islam!"

It's a lot more complicated than just Sunni vs Shiite as well. Not that issues between Sunni and Shia Islam aren't a significant factor, but there are a lot of different groups and sects playing a role in Syria right now.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
It's an interesting point dael, it unfortunately completely ignores Russia and China showing up all over the globe with a trollface grin and arming the gak out of people we don't like, people with fairly abysmal human rights abuse histories, of course that's very often overlooked in the 'Hey, America is always stamping it's authority all over the world' when the truth of it was more like 'the rest of the world has often called on America to get it's hands dirty and break up shenanigans because of it's huge military and because of other powers reluctance to send their own into the fire'.

It was only Bush jnr and his wacky 'also, lets invade iraq whilst we're on a roll' fiasco that really put America in the dog house with most of the rest of the world. And it's a fair point, the US had touted the UN as the 'world authority' for years and used ignoring it as the basis for identifying bad guys... then they ignored it themselves.

But administrations change and Russian and Chinese influences propping up monsters directly flying in the face of the west doesn't.

America has been in the dog house for a long time. Any student of Cold war history will tell you that American foreign policy in Latin America (and of course Vietnam) under the guise of anti-Communism, left a very big black mark against the US government. That's not to say that the other side were better (hell no) but this modern idea that America has always been a benign power until the Iraq/Afghanistan situation, leaves a lot to be desired.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Andrew1975 wrote:
As if we need another reason to stay out of the middle east!

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/28/health/france-coronavirus-death/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

That's right a new deadly virus!

Will people blame America for this too?

Yes! And the fact that I ran out of bread for my breakfast this morning is also America's fault!