dogma wrote:

 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'?

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 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.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

I can certainly think back to the Libya airstrikes, growing aggressive stance against the Ayatollah in Iran, the invasion of Kuwait etc and the US in those cases portraying the UN as a 'justice league' council of the peaceful world, authorizing it to 'go forth and bring justice' in the media, to it's and our populace. Bad guys were portrayed as breaking 'world law', COBRA style... I think the Iraq conflict was the first time the US administration gave a clear middle finger because the UN wasn't doing exactly as it wanted as fast as it wanted so it just ignored it and invaded a country, something it claimed in the first Iraq war, marked an internationally condemned act of aggression and left the aggressor open to reprisal.

 dogma wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

I can certainly think back to the Libya airstrikes, growing aggressive stance against the Ayatollah in Iran, the invasion of Kuwait etc and the US in those cases portraying the UN as a 'justice league' council of the peaceful world, authorizing it to 'go forth and bring justice' in the media, to it's and our populace. Bad guys were portrayed as breaking 'world law', COBRA style... I think the Iraq conflict was the first time the US administration gave a clear middle finger because the UN wasn't doing exactly as it wanted as fast as it wanted so it just ignored it and invaded a country, something it claimed in the first Iraq war, marked an internationally condemned act of aggression and left the aggressor open to reprisal.

So, what you're saying is that the US never touted the UN as the "world authority"?

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

I'm saying it absolutely touted the UN as the world authority, a democratic council where the issued edict was as good as international law...

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

...and that it's enemies in the middle east or elsewhere were breaking the laws of the UN and so the US was being the enforcer of the 'free world's rules and rights.

 dogma wrote:
[

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

...and that it's enemies in the middle east or elsewhere were breaking the laws of the UN and so the US was being the enforcer of the 'free world's rules and rights.

You keep bracketing phrases with quotations and I'm not sure why, as I cannot find any iteration of the phrases you have used which trace back to a particular person (other than yourself).

 dogma wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

I'm saying it absolutely touted the UN as the world authority, a democratic council where the issued edict was as good as international law...

Well, yeah, all resolutions of the UN are international law, and the UN is clearly democratic. But that doesn't mean the US touted the UN as the "world authority".

 Hordini wrote:
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.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
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.

I believe that Assad is part of the minority Alawite sect of Islam

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I think it's different in American English.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Also, international laws are supposed to trump national laws, so the authority of the UN is being held above it's various member nations, so it's the world's highest authority, or that's how it's sold.

 dogma wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Also, international laws are supposed to trump national laws, so the authority of the UN is being held above it's various member nations, so it's the world's highest authority, or that's how it's sold.

No, the US has never held that international law supersedes domestic law. In fact it has repeatedly, and rightly, claimed the opposite.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's defense minister is signaling that his military is prepared to strike shipments of advanced Russian weapons to Syria.
Israel has been pressing Moscow not to go through with a promised delivery of advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Damascus. Israel fears the missiles could slip into the hands of hostile groups like Hezbollah.
Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Tuesday that Israel believes the missiles haven't been shipped yet but the military "will know what to do" if they are delivered.
Yaalon spoke at an annual home front drill preparing for missile attacks. This year's exercise comes at a time of heightened concerns that Israel could be dragged into the Syrian civil war.
Israel is believed to have carried out recent airstrikes on weapon depots inside Syria destined for Hezbollah.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's defense chief said Tuesday a Russian plan to supply sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles to Syria was a "threat" and signaled that Israel is prepared to use force to stop the delivery.
The warning by Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon ratcheted up tensions with Moscow over the planned sale of S-300 air-defense missiles to Syria. Earlier in the day, a top Russian official said his government remained committed to the deal.
Israel has been lobbying Moscow to halt the sale, fearing the missiles would upset the balance of power in the region and could slip into the hands of hostile groups, including the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, a close ally of the Syrian regime.
Israel has carried out several airstrikes in Syria in recent months that are believed to have destroyed weapons shipments bound for Hezbollah. Israel has not confirmed carrying out the attacks.
The delivery of the Russian missiles to Syria could limit the Israeli air force's ability to act. It is not clear whether Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace in these attacks.
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Russia to discuss the Syrian situation with President Vladimir Putin. The sides have said little about the talks, but the S-300s were believed to have been on the agenda.
"Clearly this move is a threat to us," Yaalon told reporters Tuesday when asked about the planned Russian sale.
"At this stage I can't say there is an escalation. The shipments have not been sent on their way yet. And I hope that they will not be sent," he said. But "if God forbid they do reach Syria, we will know what to do."
Since the Syrian conflict erupted in March 2011, Israel repeatedly has voiced concerns that Syria's sophisticated arsenal, including chemical weapons, could either be transferred to Hezbollah, a bitter enemy of Israel, or fall into the hands of rebels battling Syrian President Bashar Assad. The rebels include al-Qaida-affiliated groups that Israel believes could turn their attention toward Israel if they topple Assad.
Syria already possesses Russian-made air defenses, and Israel is believed to have used long-distance bombs fired from Israeli or Lebanese airspace. The S-300s would expand Syria's capabilities, allowing it to counter airstrikes launched from foreign airspace as well.
In Moscow, Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, wouldn't say whether Russia has shipped any of the S-300s, which have a range of up to 200 kilometers (125 miles) and the capability to track and strike multiple targets simultaneously. But he insisted that Moscow isn't going to abandon the deal despite strong Western and Israeli criticism.
"We understand the concerns and signals sent to us from different capitals. We realize that many of our partners are concerned about the issue," Ryabkov said. "We have no reason to revise our stance."
He said the missiles could be a deterrent against foreign intervention in Syria and would not be used against Syrian rebels, who do not have an air force.
"We believe that such steps to a large extent help restrain some 'hotheads' considering a scenario to give an international dimension to this conflict," he said.
Russia has been the key ally of the Syrian regime, protecting it from United Nations sanctions and providing it with weapons despite the civil war there that has claimed over 70,000 lives.
In any case, an open confrontation between Israel and Russia would seem to be months away. Russian military analysts say it would take at least one year for Syrian crews to learn how to operate the S-300s, and the training will involve a live drill with real ammunition at a Russian shooting range. There has been no evidence that any such training has begun.
If Russia were to deliver the missiles to Syria, Israeli and Western intelligence would likely detect the shipment, and Israel would have ample time to strike before the system is deployed.
Ryabkov's statement came a day after European Union's decision to lift an arms embargo against Syrian rebels. He criticized the EU decision, saying it would help fuel the conflict.
Israel's defense chief spoke at an annual civil defense drill to prepare for missile attacks on Israel. This year's exercise comes at a time of heightened concerns that Israel could be dragged into the Syrian civil war.
A number of mortar shells from the fighting in Syria have landed in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. While Israel believes most of the fire has been errant, it has accused Syria of firing intentionally at Israeli targets on several occasions, and last week the sides briefly exchanged fire.
Israel's civil defense chief, Home Front Minister Gilad Erdan, said this week's drill was not specifically connected to the tensions with Syria.
"But of course we must take into consideration that something like that might happen in the near future because of what we see in Syria, and because we know that chemical weapons exist in Syria and might fall to the hands of radical Muslim terror groups," he said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denounced as "odious" a U.S.-backed draft resolution condemning the Syrian government before a debate at the U.N. Human Rights Council on Wednesday and said it would undermine peace efforts.
Lavrov said U.S. support for the draft resolution, which would condemn "widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights" by Syrian authorities and affiliated militias, ran counter to U.S.-Russian efforts to convene a peace conference.
"The U.S. delegation (at the council in Geneva) is very actively promoting this extremely unwholesome initiative," Lavrov told a news conference after talks with Latin American counterparts in Moscow.
He said the draft was "unilateral and odious" and likened it to a U.N. General Assembly resolution adopted earlier this month that he said was aimed at creating obstacles to U.S.-Russian efforts to foster a peaceful solution.
Lavrov said it was unacceptable to support the conference, which he and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry are trying to organize, while at the same time "taking steps that are in essence aimed at undermining this proposal".
Lavrov reiterated Russian insistence that Iran be invited to the conference, an idea opposed by France, and said opponents of President Bashar al-Assad should be persuaded to enter negotiations "without preconditions" such as his exit.
Russia has been Assad's most powerful protector during the conflict that has killed more than 80,000 people, opposing U.N. sanctions and, along with China, blocking three Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolutions it said were one-sided.
Iran is the main regional ally of Assad.
Speaking in Paris, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said any decision to include Iran in the Geneva talks would be "extremely dangerous" as it would harm prospects of reaching a deal with Tehran on its disputed nuclear program.
"We fear that if they are part of the Syrian conference they will try to drag things on to such an extent that they will blackmail us saying that the Syrian crisis can only be resolved on condition that they have the nuclear bomb," Fabius told France Inter radio. Iran denies seeking nuclear bomb capability.
Fabius said that with Iran having sent instructors and officers to Syria and encouraged Hezbollah to fight anti-Assad rebels, it would be a mistake to "ask people to attend a conference whose objective is to prevent a positive solution".
Russia joined the United States and other powers last June in calling for the creation of a transitional governing body in Syria and says it is not trying to prop Assad up but that his departure cannot be imposed as a precondition for talks.
Lavrov also said the European Union's decision on Thursday to let an arms embargo on Syria lapse, allowing members to supply rebels on their own initiative, "at a minimum creates serious hurdles" to plans for the peace conference.
Russia says the weapons it supplies Assad's government are meant for defense against external attacks. Moscow has declared it will not yield to pressure to scrap a contract to deliver S-300 ground-to-air missile systems to Syria.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Britain has written to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon about additional suspected chemical weapons attacks by Syrian government forces in March and April, British U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said on Wednesday.
"We continue to inform the Secretary-General and Mr. Sellstrom of any information as, and when, we get it," he said, referring to the Swedish head of a U.N. chemical weapons investigation team, Ake Sellstrom.
He declined to provide details, but a U.N. official said on condition of anonymity that the three specific incidents referred to in Lyall Grant's letter have been previously publicized.
One was an alleged attack in Adra in late March.
In that incident, Syrian opposition campaigners said forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad fired what they said were chemical weapons from multiple rocket launchers at rebel fighters surrounding an army base in the town of Adra on the outskirts of Damascus, killing two fighters and wounding 23.
The opposition alleged that Assad's forces used chemical weapons again in late April in Daraya, a suburb of Damascus, and in Saraqeb around the same time.
The government has denied using chemical weapons and has in turn accused rebels of deploying them in the two-year civil war that the United Nations says has killed over 80,000 people.
A senior French official said on Monday that France was testing samples of suspected chemical weapon elements used against Syrian rebels and smuggled out by reporters from Le Monde newspaper and will divulge the results in the next few days.
U.N. INVESTIGATORS UNABLE TO ENTER SYRIA
Britain and France wrote to Ban earlier this year to urge him to investigate three alleged chemical weapons attacks in the vicinity of Homs, Damascus and Aleppo.
A senior U.N. official said last week that the world body was receiving increasing reports of the use of chemical weapons in Syria as the violence escalates.
Sellstrom's team of chemical weapons experts has been ready for more than a month to enter Syria to investigate the allegations but has been held up by diplomatic wrangling and safety concerns.
Ban has urged Syria to give the experts unfettered access to investigate all alleged chemical arms incidents. But Assad's government only wants the U.N. team to probe the Aleppo incident from March, not the alleged December Homs attack. U.N. diplomats say U.N.-Syria negotiations on access have reached a deadlock.
Earlier this month, Carla Del Ponte, a member of a U.N. inquiry commission looking at allegations of war crimes in Syria, said the panel had gathered testimony from casualties and medical staff indicating that rebel forces had used the banned nerve agent sarin.
But the commission, which is separate from Sellstrom's chemical weapons investigation team, quickly issued a statement distancing itself from Del Ponte's remarks, saying it has reached no conclusions on whether any side in the Syrian war has used chemical weapons.
Syria, which is not a member of the anti-chemical weapons convention, is believed to have one of the world's last remaining stockpiles of undeclared chemical arms.

 dogma wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Also, international laws are supposed to trump national laws, so the authority of the UN is being held above it's various member nations, so it's the world's highest authority, or that's how it's sold.

No, the US has never held that international law supersedes domestic law. In fact it has repeatedly, and rightly, claimed the opposite.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Also, international laws are supposed to trump national laws, so the authority of the UN is being held above it's various member nations, so it's the world's highest authority, or that's how it's sold.

No, the US has never held that international law supersedes domestic law. In fact it has repeatedly, and rightly, claimed the opposite.

So the US has never condemned a nation's breaches of human rights under international law, regardless of the nation's own laws and punishments?

 Frazzled wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Also, international laws are supposed to trump national laws, so the authority of the UN is being held above it's various member nations, so it's the world's highest authority, or that's how it's sold.

No, the US has never held that international law supersedes domestic law. In fact it has repeatedly, and rightly, claimed the opposite.

So the US has never condemned a nation's breaches of human rights under international law, regardless of the nation's own laws and punishments?

Sure it has. However they are correctly noting that a treaty does not trump US law...except:
1) the treaty has to be properly ratified by the Senate and signed by El Presidente.
2) the treaty has to pass Constitutional muster like any other federal law.

If both are correct then the federal implementing legislation has supremacy over state law. That doesn't mean state law can't be more strict.
Does that help?

 sebster wrote:
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?

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

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Two weeks? You're feeling generous

There I disagree. The Brits and the French have the logistics capability to go into Syria for a couple years. It'd be nowhere near as easy for them as badgering the US to do it, but them's the breaks.

 Valion wrote:

 sebster wrote:
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?

There I disagree. The Brits and the French have the logistics capability to go into Syria for a couple years. It'd be nowhere near as easy for them to do as it'd be for us to do, but them's the breaks.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Single quotation marks in British English can be used to highlight and emphasis a phrase or word you wish to draw special attention to or to summarize a quote or subject, whereas the double quotation should be used to quote verbatim. I think it's different in American English.
[...]
Or at least that's what I've always understood and used it as, if you know better then by all means educate me on it, I'll stand corrected and then immediately go back to using it incorrectly, just as I always use an 'a' in definately instead of definitely, until spellcheck corrects me, as I have mislearned that spelling and cannot seem to shake it off, at 37, I feel I'm unlikely to either.

 djones520 wrote:

 Valion wrote:

 sebster wrote:
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?

There I disagree. The Brits and the French have the logistics capability to go into Syria for a couple years. It'd be nowhere near as easy for them to do as it'd be for us to do, but them's the breaks.

Right... thats why the USAF just busted our asses last year transporting the French military to Mali. That's why the USAF was providing all aerial refueling for British and French aircraft in the enforcement of the Libyan no-fly zone.

We are their logistical support.

 Valion wrote:
There I disagree. The Brits and the French have the logistics capability to go into Syria for a couple years. It'd be nowhere near as easy for them to do as it'd be for us to do, but them's the breaks.

True, but I think more as a means of pointing out that all the people clamoring for action now will be the ones burning Obama in effigy two weeks after intervention starts.

I suspect their opinions would be very different if there was a Republican President arguing strongly for intervention.

 Jihadin wrote:
We just need to keep going with what we already establish. COM support and medical supplies....plus food and clothing to the refugee camps