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 Easy E wrote:
Edit: Seaward, do you recall what "Balkan Intervention Levels" of aircraft lost was? I honestly don't remember losing any pilots to Serb fire.

Scott O'Grady's F-16 and an F-117, off the top of my head. I'm lumping in everything in that region over a period of five years.

 Ketara wrote:
In a hypothetical world where I was Prime Minister, I'd grab the US, the Germans, and the French, and have each of us contribute 2,500 men + support equipment. Then land at Latakia on the coast, and enforce a twenty mile safe zone. Followed by the setting up as many refugee camps as possible, and direct allocation of aid.

I'm all for helping refugees, and giving assistance to Turkey to help those fleeing the conflict. But no boots on the ground. That just seems like a sure fire way to invite mission creep as any peacekeeping force will end up taking fire, and possibly casualties, and both sides in the civil war will rush to blame each other. Have you forgotten the 1983 Beirut barracks suicide bombing?


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 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
The British and French were handling Syria when you guys were still chasing Geronimo around!

And what a fine job you did of handling it too


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 Frazzled wrote:
You go. I'll hold your coat for you.

I'm having flashbacks to a previous thread where a particular community member, and alleged PMC (sorry "Operator"), was extolling the values of US volunteers before the US formally declared war.


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 Pacific wrote:
Was one of the million or so who protested in the UK over the 2nd Iraq war, didn't make a scrap of difference to government policy then and unfortunately you get the feeling that even now saying "really... have you thought this through?" won't make any difference either.

The UK population was over 55 million at the time, that figure puts you in the minority.

 Easy E wrote:

Edit: Seaward, do you recall what "Balkan Intervention Levels" of aircraft lost was? I honestly don't remember losing any pilots to Serb fire.

NATO combat aircraft: lost 3 fixed wing (including 1 F117) and two helos (both apaches). Had a further three damaged, lost 30 (ish) UAVs, IIRC. Those are the 'official' numbers, though other sources vary wildly on the number of aircraft damaged by ground fire.


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 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

I'm having flashbacks to a previous thread where a particular community member, and alleged PMC (sorry "Operator"), was extolling the values of US volunteers before the US formally declared war.

At the request of the mods, I'm not at liberty to respond to your provocations on that issue, as you know, and will enforce it. No more insults Baron.. Though it might amuse you to know that four pals of mine are currently stuck in Cairo because they went ahead instead of waiting, the new regime being less interested in hiring additional manpower to deal with Syria than the previous one was.

That said, 'let someone else deal with it' doesn't really work. It's like the old story about the woman getting raped and murdered in front of a large audience. Everyone assumed that someone else would deal with it. Isolationism is all well and good, but it hasn't worked yet, it only serves to make the casualties higher than they would have otherwise been. Personal opinion, I think it better to have the possibility of losing a few men than the certainty of losing a lot.

On Israel TV: Chemical weapons were fired by Assad’s brother’s unit

The chemical weapons allegedly used to kill hundreds of Syrian civilians by the regime of President Bashar Assad last Wednesday were fired by the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Army, an Israel TV report said. This division is under the command of the president’s brother, Maher Assad.

The nerve gas shells were fired from a military base in a mountain range to the west of Damascus, the Channel 2 news report said.

The embattled regime has concentrated its vast stocks of chemical weaponry in just two or three locations, the report said, under the control of Syrian Air Force Intelligence, itself reporting to the president.

The TV report further added that “the assessment in Israel” is that the attack was intended to serve as the possible start of a wider operation. It said Israel was increasingly concerned about the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and their possibility of these weapons falling into still more dangerous hands than those of Assad. Israel was “privately” making clear its concerns to the United States, the report said.

In his first response Thursday to the alleged attack, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Iran was closely watching how the world would deal with the attack.

“Syria has become Iran’s testing ground, and Iran is closely watching whether and how the world responds to the atrocities committed there by its client state Syria and its proxy Hezbollah against innocent civilians in Syria,” he said.

Yeesh...

Why do I feel like we're seeing a live action:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
That said, 'let someone else deal with it' doesn't really work. It's like the old story about the woman getting raped and murdered in front of a large audience. Everyone assumed that someone else would deal with it. Isolationism is all well and good, but it hasn't worked yet, it only serves to make the casualties higher than they would have otherwise been. Personal opinion, I think it better to have the possibility of losing a few men than the certainty of losing a lot.

Your comparison with rape is horribly flawed.
Preventing a rape is perfectly desirable. You are preventing someone from having to endure a horrible act being committed against them by a given group or individual. The victim can then receive the help that she needs to rebuild her life and move on. Getting sucked into a civil war with no clear group to support, each of which is alleged to have committed war crimes against the other, with geo-political ramifications, a variety of extra-territorial actors and no clear end game is a vastly different proposition. A better metaphor would be trying to get involved in a turf war between rival gangs.


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 whembly wrote:
On Israel TV: Chemical weapons were fired by Assad’s brother’s unit

The embattled regime has concentrated its vast stocks of chemical weaponry in just two or three locations, the report said, under the control of Syrian Air Force Intelligence, itself reporting to the president.

I suppose the only saving grace is that if the US does get sucked in then maybe some targeted strikes against these locations will suffice (and give the media plenty of fodder to hand wring over)

Targeted strikes will be our primary tool. If we put boot on the ground, it'll solely be to secure weapon stock piles, though we'd be more likely to just bomb said locations.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

I'm all for helping refugees, and giving assistance to Turkey to help those fleeing the conflict. But no boots on the ground. That just seems like a sure fire way to invite mission creep as any peacekeeping force will end up taking fire, and possibly casualties, and both sides in the civil war will rush to blame each other. Have you forgotten the 1983 Beirut barracks suicide bombing?

Not putting enough boots on the ground leads to a repeat of this:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre

Either we make a safe haven, or we leave the place alone. If we send aid to the surrounding countries, it'll likely have more than half of it usurped, stolen, and shuffled away to somewhere else. If we send it directly into the country, the government forces will seize it. If we send weapons into the country, we run the risk of them getting used by people we don't like on civilians. And if we just nuke key points with missiles, all we do is mix things up for no real benefit to anyone.

The British and US armies have a lot of experience in peacekeeping actions of late. With ten thousand men, we'll have enough boots on the ground that we won't risk a repeat of the '93 experience.

When I say a twenty mile limit though, I mean that. Set up a perimeter of barbed wire with designated gates, and drones watching all the approaches for refugees approaching in need of help. Ten thousand men should be plenty to ensure the integrity of the safe zone with proper patrolling. And with a locally recruited police force, have the troops do as little peacekeeping internally in the safe zone as is necessary.

The goal would be keeping out all armed factions and allowing life to go on as normally as possible within the zone. With multiple nationalities involved, the likelihood of mission creep is substantially reduced as well. If you have a set border to be guarded split between several nationalities, any kind of mission creep would only be as a result of all parties concurring (as they would be too small to take action alone). And if all parties agree, then it's really no issue.

Fact is, most civilians in any country just want to be safe and tomorrow to be like today. Set up an area safeguarded by soldiers with food, hospitals and schools, and they'll come to you.

 Ketara wrote:
Not putting enough boots on the ground leads to a repeat of this:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre

That was more complicated than just lack of boots on the ground. UN forces had stifling ROE and nowhere near enough supplies for what they were sent to do.

 Ketara wrote:
Fact is, most civilians in any country just want to be safe and tomorrow to be like today. Set up an area safeguarded by soldiers with food, hospitals and schools, and they'll come to you.

Fact is, most jihadis (and possibly other agitators) will also come to you, and not for humanitarian assistance. We've seen it in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lets not make it three for three.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

Fact is, most jihadis (and possibly other agitators) will also come to you, and not for humanitarian assistance. We've seen it in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lets not make it three for three.

The death toll has quite possibly topped 100,000. Look at that figure for a second. Can you actually grasp how many people that is dead? Now consider: chemical attacks being used on the populace. By both sides if my guesses are accurate. People dying from a mode of warfare that we more or less completely outlawed after WW1 for being too brutal.

Now I'm completely aware that we cannot consider ourselves responsible for what goes on in other parts of the world. We have a duty to our own soldiers, to see that as few of them have to risk their lives as possible. That's why I would never advocate just moving into the region and taking it over altogether Iraq/Afghanistan style. We've been burned too badly too often doing that sort of thing.

But at the same time, if you allow the fear of a few dozen jihaadi fighters pin down your entire foreign policy and make you refrain from lending even the slightest helping hand to civilians in genuine need when they're getting hit with chemical attacks? Then they run your country. Not you. Consider yourself terrorised. You no longer dare to do anything which might anger them or embroil yourself against them.

We have a duty to our own. So rolling in guns blazing to 'impose' peace is a daft idea. It'll get too many of our own killed. Having a lot of people from various nations patrolling a perimeter? Risky, but potentially worthwhile if it saves another fifty thousand lives and stops children being gassed to death in their bedrooms.

 Ketara wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

I'm all for helping refugees, and giving assistance to Turkey to help those fleeing the conflict. But no boots on the ground. That just seems like a sure fire way to invite mission creep as any peacekeeping force will end up taking fire, and possibly casualties, and both sides in the civil war will rush to blame each other. Have you forgotten the 1983 Beirut barracks suicide bombing?

Not putting enough boots on the ground leads to a repeat of this:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre

Either we make a safe haven, or we leave the place alone. If we send aid to the surrounding countries, it'll likely have more than half of it usurped, stolen, and shuffled away to somewhere else. If we send it directly into the country, the government forces will seize it. If we send weapons into the country, we run the risk of them getting used by people we don't like on civilians. And if we just nuke key points with missiles, all we do is mix things up for no real benefit to anyone.

The British and US armies have a lot of experience in peacekeeping actions of late. With ten thousand men, we'll have enough boots on the ground that we won't risk a repeat of the '93 experience.

When I say a twenty mile limit though, I mean that. Set up a perimeter of barbed wire with designated gates, and drones watching all the approaches for refugees approaching in need of help. Ten thousand men should be plenty to ensure the integrity of the safe zone with proper patrolling. And with a locally recruited police force, have the troops do as little peacekeeping internally in the safe zone as is necessary.

The goal would be keeping out all armed factions and allowing life to go on as normally as possible within the zone. With multiple nationalities involved, the likelihood of mission creep is substantially reduced as well. If you have a set border to be guarded split between several nationalities, any kind of mission creep would only be as a result of all parties concurring (as they would be too small to take action alone). And if all parties agree, then it's really no issue.

Fact is, most civilians in any country just want to be safe and tomorrow to be like today. Set up an area safeguarded by soldiers with food, hospitals and schools, and they'll come to you.

There is a third option - a moat filled with angry sea bass with "Lazers."

 Ketara wrote:
The death toll has quite possibly topped 100,000. Look at that figure for a second. Can you actually grasp how many people that is dead?

Yup, that's 100,000+ dead.

 Ketara wrote:
But at the same time, if you allow the fear of a few dozen jihaadi fighters pin down your entire foreign policy and make you refrain from lending even the slightest helping hand to civilians in genuine need when they're getting hit with chemical attacks? Then they run your country. Not you. Consider yourself terrorised. You no longer dare to do anything which might anger them or embroil yourself against them.

What delightful misinterpretation from understating the problem in an attempt to score some cheap points. It is the jihadis who are the most effective anti-Assad force in Syria. And remind us again just how many foreign fighters went to Iraq and Afghanistan and what sort of damage they did. Now you want to get involved in a conflict that already has Iran, Russia, Al-Queda, Hizbollah, and many others taking part?
But if the UK wants to waste the lives of their troops I wish them the very best. I'd hate to hear that they were being terrorised by a few dozen jihaadi fighters, especially after a few dozen Irish rebels got them to leave most of Ireland and later start a peace process for the north of the country

 Ketara wrote:
We have a duty to our own. So rolling in guns blazing to 'impose' peace is a daft idea. It'll get too many of our own killed. Having a lot of people from various nations patrolling a perimeter? Risky, but potentially worthwhile if it saves another fifty thousand lives and stops children being gassed to death in their bedrooms.

Beautifully poignant, but sadly ineffective appeal to emotion. Concerning the underlined portion that sort of contradicts what you said earlier. Namely;

 Ketara wrote:
Now I'm completely aware that we cannot consider ourselves responsible for what goes on in other parts of the world. We have a duty to our own soldiers, to see that as few of them have to risk their lives as possible..

So we have a duty to our own servicemen and women not to endanger their lives unnecessarily, but yet you want us to invade a sovereign nation (dress it up all you want, that's exactly what you're doing if you want to enforce a safe zone) and involve ourselves in a civil war with no clear way out and no clear faction to support.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
We cant just intervene for a couple of months and leave. That wont work.

The French might disagree with you on that one. Recently they've been pretty successful at doing exactly that, then handing off to the UN for the rebuilding process.

Mali was a whole different situation. The situation in Mali with the Tuareg rebels has been a problem for many years. Reently this came to head with the influx of Libyan weapons out of the civil war. Although extremists supported the Tuareg rebels in pushing back the military. But the main thing that although it also had an islamist goal, the main part has been idependence. Sectarian violence was much less severe and the population much less divided. The parties were clearly defined, the goverment against the Tuareg/islamist rebels. Which made the task of driving them back easier. Mali has even signed a peace treaty with the Tuareg, with most of the conflict having died down. How does this even aprroach the level of complexity in Syria?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Suppressing the war wont help. We go in there and were in for a fight, no matter what. No matter the RoE we will get plastered, by one side or the other, but more likely both sides. We cant suppress the war, it would be Iraq all over again, its basicly some of the same people on both sides that were there for Iraq too. Off course you have to temporarily supress the war to get those weapons out, but most likely almost all factions will fight you every step of the way.

Not really, there really are WMDs this time. The second is that the US and it's allies already know what doesn't work this time. Going into Iraq they had no idea of what they were getting into or how to go about it. It does assume that command learned a damn thing, which is always dangerous, but there it is.

Iraq all over again as in the years of secterian violence and civil war. They might already know what doesnt work, but from the current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan its painfully clear that they still dont know what works. Why else would they be so reluctant? Libya was far easier and was demonstrated by how quick the intervened, just the goverment bombing the rebels, no secterian violence or ill defined factions. Its been over two years for Syria so far.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Intervention in these kinds of conflicts is extremely difficult and has already proven to be no guarantee, like Lebanon. There 299 American and French military personnel lost their lives to islamic extremists, prompting the retreat out of Lebanon. Now the use of suicide attacks and bombings is much higher, due to the rise in extremism.

And, Unless I misread the latest intel, most of those extremists are coming from Syria rather than being home grown Lebanese extremists.

Hezbollah is the primary shia militant organisation in Lebanon, the homegrown extremists. They are bombing sunni targets. Sunni extremists, retaliate in Lebanon be they homegrown or from the war in Syria. Even know its clear that both sides are pulling extremists from outside of Syria to fight. We in Europe are having problems with the fact that extremist youths are going to Syria to fight on the sunni extremist side. The situation is a mix of homegrown and import, being difficult to accurately count.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

On your point of it getting worse. The only thing that is going to make it worse is Western intervention. Iran will not just stand by and see on of its only shia allies lose. It will worsen the conflict by sending more arms or even personnel (volunteers). China and Russia have already proven that they will send weapons to help against Western intervention. Helping the rebel factions win will most likely be only viable if we protect every single chemical bunker or storage. Because the most likely thing the sunni extremists will do is try to arm them to a missile and aim for Isreal, they only see Syria as a platform, they are not even Syrians themselves.

So the war spreading into Lebanon Jordan and Turkey wouldn't be 'worse'? Escalating violence against civilians by both sides isn't 'worse'? The first would be a not too far fetched at this point direct result of not intervening. The second *might* happen if there is intervention but *will* happen if there isn't. And what happens when those chemical weapons turn up in a train in London, or a bus in Amsterdam, or a subway in New York? I think that would qualify as 'worse' don't you?

Everything would be worse, but those things are already happening. Its already spread to Lebanon. We cant prevent that anymore. How are we supposed to prevent it from spreading? Intervention will just drive the extremists over the borders, like they do in Afghanistan to escape military actions. We would likely do more to spread it with intervention than the civil war currently does. And why do Jordan and Turkey not intervene? They have the forces and are bordered along Syria, yet only the West seems to be obligated. While experience shows that the culture shock and inexperience with those countries doesnt help in solving the problem.
I fail to see how the violence is escalating, so far this seems to be an isolated incident. Off course its bad enough, but will Western intervention solve anything. So far there is no conclusive report saying that Western intervention will help. And seeing how reluctant the West still is it seems that they dont know what the intervention will achieve. And playing the Devil's advocate, lets help Assad against the rebels? We know hes a giant warcriminal, but at least we can trust him to secure those chemical weapons and maintain stability in the region. Would you support such a Western intervention to prevent it from getting 'worse'? Would you?

 djones520 wrote:
Targeted strikes will be our primary tool. If we put boot on the ground, it'll solely be to secure weapon stock piles, though we'd be more likely to just bomb said locations.

Yeah, because it worked so well last time it was done at Kamisiyah and Salman Pak. Oh, wait.... no, that just exposed tens of thousands of people to 'non-lethal' levels of mustard gas and sarin, among other things, and inflicted Gulf War Syndrome on coalition troops.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Yeah, because it worked so well last time it was done at Kamisiyah and Salman Pak. Oh, wait.... no, that just exposed tens of thousands of people to 'non-lethal' levels of mustard gas and sarin, among other things, and inflicted Gulf War Syndrome on coalition troops.

You figured out Gulf War Syndrome? Better let someone know.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
Not putting enough boots on the ground leads to a repeat of this:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre

That was more complicated than just lack of boots on the ground. UN forces had stifling ROE and nowhere near enough supplies for what they were sent to do.

It was also the mindset of the Dutch UN forces there. The commander was concerned with getting his men home, which is why they didnt even offer token resistance and went as far as to hand over local contracted personnal, knowing what would happen. Air support was cancelled because, hold on, Serbian forces threatened to kill members of the Dutch battalion. They considered that to be worse, in a war, than knowing what the Serbs would do. Its still a big deal for us, in which its difficult to pick a side. Most people from my generation (18-25) think it was wrong of our forces not to do anything. Its what they had signed up for but when the moment of truth came they were too scared to. It didnt help that evidence was conveniently 'lost' by the military in the investigation. Most of the men of 'Dutchbat' are still shunned by society and if ever mentioned mostly on a negative tone in the media.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

What delightful misinterpretation from understating the problem in an attempt to score some cheap points.....
......Beautifully poignant, but sadly ineffective appeal to emotion.........
.....But if the UK wants to waste the lives of their troops I wish them the very best. I'd hate to hear that they were being terrorised by a few dozen jihaadi fighters, especially after a few dozen Irish rebels got them to leave most of Ireland and later start a peace process for the north of the country ....

You seem to be under some sort of misapprehension here. Namely that snarkiness/borderline rudeness is becoming.

I wrote what I wrote before as it is what I genuinely feel on the issue. I don't take some sort of vicarious pleasure out of 'scoring points'. If you intend on having a serious/productive conversation with somebody else, a certain degree of basic common courtesy and politeness would be much appreciated. Otherwise, you might want to just step away from the keyboard before you hurt yourself laughing at your own rapier wit.

So we have a duty to our own servicemen and women not to endanger their lives unnecessarily, but yet you want us to invade a sovereign nation(dress it up all you want, that's exactly what you're doing if you want to enforce a safe zone) and involve ourselves in a civil war with no clear way out and no clear faction to support.

I believe that we should involve ourselves to a limited extent, yes. Involve us in the civil war? Not so much. Beyond securing the safezone and maintaining basic law and order (aka, no artillery attacks/chemical warfare/outright firefights), I recommend absolutely no involvement beyond that. As to no faction to support? I don't advocate supporting a faction at all.

Far harder things than this have been done over the years in terms of foreign policy and limited involvement in foreign countries. It's not impossible to maintain a safe zone for a year or two in the wake of what is quite frankly turning into mass murder.

What if the BG's drop rounds into your safe zone or send people in to kill people in your safe zone? What if rebels use your safe zone as, well a safe zone to launch attacks?
What if the rebels start instituting sharia law in your safe zone or maybe kill a few Christians for kicks?

 Frazzled wrote:
What if the BG's drop rounds into your safe zone or send people in to kill people in your safe zone? What if rebels use your safe zone as, well a safe zone to launch attacks?
What if the rebels start instituting sharia law in your safe zone or maybe kill a few Christians for kicks?

See, these are good questions. Excellent questions in fact. The sort of questions which a number of people get paid a lot of money to formulate policy on.

My first thoughts at answers? I draw the line at loss of life within the safe zone. If someone drops an artillery round in it, you plaster the area it came from with drone strikes and missiles. If sharia law is instituted? Fine. It's their society and way of life. As long as nobody is getting stoned to death/killed, they can live according to their own values. If anybody tries to do something along those lines (stoning women to death or other daft things), fingerprint the people involved so they can't get back into the safe zone, and kick them out back into the country. You lose your right to protection when you try and kill others.

Also, institute a policy of not allowing weapons across the safe zone border. It becomes difficult to use a place as a safe haven if you can't move men and materials across at will. If I have several thousand soldiers patrolling up and down that border, moving anything at all across unsanctioned will be a challenge.


These are just my initial thoughts in regards to such issues, but I like to think that they indicate that such issues are not unsolvable. My answers may not be perfect, or even the best ones (and indeed, probably are not). But I do not believe such difficulties to be insurmountable. Things will never work out perfectly, but it probably still works out better in the long run than the alternative (namely thousands dying to chemical weapon attacks).

See, these are good questions. Excellent questions in fact. The sort of questions which a number of people get paid a lot of money to formulate policy on.

I accept wire transfers, certified check, and of course platinum.

My first thoughts at answers? I draw the line at loss of life within the safe zone. If someone drops an artillery round in it, you plaster the area it came from with drone strikes and missiles.

What if the rounds are being fired from civilian occupied areas?
What if that doesn’t stop incoming rounds/rockets?
What if the round are from rebel factions?

If sharia law is instituted? Fine. It's their society and way of life.
As long as nobody is getting stoned to death/killed, they can live according to their own values.

What if they don’t want to live like that?
What if women start getting killed?
What if fighting breaks out from groups that don’t want to live like that?

If anybody tries to do something along those lines (stoning women to death or other daft things), fingerprint the people involved so they can't get back into the safe zone, and kick them out back into the country. You lose your right to protection when you try and kill others.

What if they kill the fingerprinters or set off some nice suicide bombs?
What if AlQaeda declares the camp now belongs to it?

Also, institute a policy of not allowing weapons across the safe zone border.

How? If the Israelis can’t do it how does the UN do it?

It becomes difficult to use a place as a safe haven if you can't move men and materials across at will. If I have several thousand soldiers patrolling up and down that border, moving anything at all across unsanctioned will be a challenge.

Cough Gaza cough West Bank cough cough Iraq cough

These are just my initial thoughts in regards to such issues, but I like to think that they indicate that such issues are not unsolvable. My answers may not be perfect, or even the best ones (and indeed, probably are not). But I do not believe such difficulties to be insurmountable. Things will never work out perfectly, but it probably still works out better in the long run than the alternative (namely thousands dying to chemical weapon attacks).

Fair enough boyo. Lets continue! The lack of shouting is good!

OT but speaking of shouting. I was at an IDPA match Saturday. Didn’t have my ears on but I didn’t realized people had started gunning until someone tapped my arm. I feel like TBone, oblivious to the world. It’s a good feeling…

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
But if the UK wants to waste the lives of their troops I wish them the very best. I'd hate to hear that they were being terrorised by a few dozen jihaadi fighters, especially after a few dozen Irish rebels got them to leave most of Ireland and later start a peace process for the north of the country

I might point out that while nicely snarky, hilariously inaccurate. AN runs about half what PIRA alone did, according to estimates. FSA has an estimated manpower not a great deal less than the Syrian armed forces, but they're poorly trained and equipped and lack air power.





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 Seaward wrote:

You figured out Gulf War Syndrome? Better let someone know.

Yes, I know there's 'controversy' thanks to all sorts of magic missing records that conveniently fell into a black hole someplace, but it's pretty fething obvious. If it was the anti-toxins supplied to coalition forces it wouldn't have effected so many in the civilian population. If it was a biowarfare agent, then you'd see a pattern of antibodies in the victims and a much more uniform set of symptoms. I suspect that the variation in symptoms has to do with the variation in exposure and proportion of agents inhaled

Let's consider "Boots on Ground" after 2014

 Frazzled wrote:

What if the rounds are being fired from civilian occupied areas?

I suppose it would depend upon the type of weapon being fired and responding appropriately. If it's a small mortar, then naturally, chucking a cruise missile would be somewhat disproportionate. If it's government owned mechanised artillery, then roll out the Challengers for some field practice? Likewise, a quick portable rocket unit on the back of a truck should be hittable with a carefully targeted drone missile.

Ultimately you may very well end up with a civilian casualty or two. But I'm going to be honest, I don't see very many civilians remaining that close to a safe zone and being on the hostile side of it.

What if that doesn’t stop incoming rounds/rockets?

Presuming you're knocking out whatever is throwing them, they'll end soon enough. The country is in a civil war, and frankly I can't see any Syrian commander on either side wasting their resources in a firefight with the West, when the West won't shoot until fired upon, and the other side is still trying to fillet them. Maybe if we remained once the country had been re-unified or one side had gained overwhelming advantage, but until then?

There's still the other side in the civil war which is actively trying to kill you, and you might need your rounds for them.

What if the round are from rebel factions?

If they're shelling it, they're hostiles. Eliminate them. Al Qaeda have forces there, being a 'rebel' does not make you a 'good guy'.

What if they don’t want to live like that?

If people have differing ways on how they want to live, split the safe zone into different sections. Ten to twenty miles is a lot of space. Let people migrate freely between sections as they want.

What if women start getting killed?

Arrest the perpetrators and either chuck them out or shoot them. Murder is murder.

What if fighting breaks out from groups that don’t want to live like that?

My previous responses cover this one I think.

How? If the Israelis can’t do it how does the UN do it?

The Gazans have had their border up for a very long time, so they've had time to dig tunnels. Not only that, they're on opposing ends of a blockade. If all the food and medicine and goodies are on our side for civilians who want them, there's no need to put in that level of effort.

On top of that, the Egyptians have been collapsing a lot of them lately. If that became an issue, we could easily adopt similar tactics.

These are just my initial thoughts in regards to such issues, but I like to think that they indicate that such issues are not unsolvable. My answers may not be perfect, or even the best ones (and indeed, probably are not). But I do not believe such difficulties to be insurmountable. Things will never work out perfectly, but it probably still works out better in the long run than the alternative (namely thousands dying to chemical weapon attacks).

Fair enough boyo. Lets continue! The lack of shouting is good!

OT but speaking of shouting. I was at an IDPA match Saturday. Didn’t have my ears on but I didn’t realized people had started gunning until someone tapped my arm. I feel like TBone, oblivious to the world. It’s a good feeling…

Just googled IDPA. Looks interesting.

We had one string where we had to carry a Barney doll while shooting one handed. The Barney doll talked. I talked back.

Barney:"I love you"
Frazzled: "I love you too" BLAM shoots a popper.

I think they posted it on Facebook. Someone look up Austin IDPA 08.24 with Barney and see if it pops up.

 Ketara wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

I'm all for helping refugees, and giving assistance to Turkey to help those fleeing the conflict. But no boots on the ground. That just seems like a sure fire way to invite mission creep as any peacekeeping force will end up taking fire, and possibly casualties, and both sides in the civil war will rush to blame each other. Have you forgotten the 1983 Beirut barracks suicide bombing?

Not putting enough boots on the ground leads to a repeat of this:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre

Ugh.. hate when someone brings that up. fething terrible and shameful that....

 Soladrin wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

I'm all for helping refugees, and giving assistance to Turkey to help those fleeing the conflict. But no boots on the ground. That just seems like a sure fire way to invite mission creep as any peacekeeping force will end up taking fire, and possibly casualties, and both sides in the civil war will rush to blame each other. Have you forgotten the 1983 Beirut barracks suicide bombing?

Not putting enough boots on the ground leads to a repeat of this:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre

Ugh.. hate when someone brings that up. fething terrible and shameful that....

Yay humanity!

if there's a genocide, ok, I can see people intervening there. But this is an armed rebellion, and there isn't really a good outcome regardless of who wins.

 xole wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

I'm all for helping refugees, and giving assistance to Turkey to help those fleeing the conflict. But no boots on the ground. That just seems like a sure fire way to invite mission creep as any peacekeeping force will end up taking fire, and possibly casualties, and both sides in the civil war will rush to blame each other. Have you forgotten the 1983 Beirut barracks suicide bombing?

Not putting enough boots on the ground leads to a repeat of this:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre

Ugh.. hate when someone brings that up. fething terrible and shameful that....

Yay humanity!

if there's a genocide, ok, I can see people intervening there. But this is an armed rebellion, and there isn't really a good outcome regardless of who wins.

Neurotixin weapons where purposefully used on a civilian populace. Children were hit with Sarin Gas. Watch this and tell me you are ok with sitting by and doing nothing about it when we have the power to step and and do something about it.

I can't do that.

I'm okay with sitting back and doing nothing until our politicians explain EXACTLY what our objectives are and go through the formal process of having congress fund the operation.

We have stayed out of a LOT of bloody civil wars over the last several decades and let lots of children die absolutely horrible deaths. This is no different.

 CptJake wrote:
I'm okay with sitting back and doing nothing until our politicians explain EXACTLY what our objectives are and go through the formal process of having congress fund the operation.

We have stayed out of a LOT of bloody civil wars over the last several decades and let lots of children die absolutely horrible deaths. This is no different.

Chemical weapon are a special thing with me. You can hide from bullets, you can run from machetes, you can take cover from bombs. The gas will get you though. There is no way at all for the civilian populace to defend themselves from that.

Use of such weapons is the ultimate evil in my eyes, and should be treated as such. Call me an idealist if you want. Even if they still hate us afterwards, I think at the least going in, and destroying their ability to use such methods of warfare, while delivering a black eye or two, is still the right thing to do.

Driving tanks into villages and machinegunning all the kiddies kills them just as dead.

The dead kid doesn't give a damn what killed him/her. In fact, bleeding out over the course of an hour or two would suck a lot worse than doing the funky chicken for a minute or two.


The means really shouldn't matter.

 djones520 wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
I'm okay with sitting back and doing nothing until our politicians explain EXACTLY what our objectives are and go through the formal process of having congress fund the operation.

We have stayed out of a LOT of bloody civil wars over the last several decades and let lots of children die absolutely horrible deaths. This is no different.

Chemical weapon are a special thing with me. You can hide from bullets, you can run from machetes, you can take cover from bombs. The gas will get you though. There is no way at all for the civilian populace to defend themselves from that.

Use of such weapons is the ultimate evil in my eyes, and should be treated as such. Call me an idealist if you want. Even if they still hate us afterwards, I think at the least going in, and destroying their ability to use such methods of warfare, while delivering a black eye or two, is still the right thing to do.

After seeing that video...

I agree. Damn you for turning me into a bleeding heart liberal? (wait... wut?)

If it's beyond the shadow of doubt... man, you really have to think about whether if this something you'd look the other way or not.

Also, keep in mind who's watching... (Iran)