whembly wrote:
Going to war (you know, blowing things up and killing people) is an act of extremely serious moral dimension. We should not even consider this engagement unless we are satisfied that at least one of the two is true:

1) That such action is so manifestly in our own selfish interests that we can be forgiven for taking the violent action.

2) That the action is so manifestly in the interests of general altruistic good we would scarcely forgive ourselves if we didn't take the violent action.

Which one is it?

 pities2004 wrote:
Anyone else concerned that a war in Syria will cause world war 3?

 easysauce wrote:
damned if we do,
damned if we dont,

dont costs less.

 pities2004 wrote:
Anyone else concerned that a war in Syria will cause world war 3?

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Lets lay our cards on the table here. The most successful Western military interventions since the end of WW2 have been Grenada and the Falklands. everything else has been a hamstrung clusterfeth or has seen muddled aims get even more tangled.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
F14s are nice , but ten times as many Flanker Cs are a bigger concern, I don't care how awesome you think the Tomcat is.

That's because you're used to the superbug. Flanker's nothing to sneeze at, and according to the Jerusalem Post they bought in bulk. She's got a higher climb speed and more engine thrust than that superbug and if she's carrying the newer Russian package she's a very viable threat.

For the giggles, here's footage of the new model flanker from the Paris air show

 pities2004 wrote:
Anyone else concerned that a war in Syria will cause world war 3?

Syria chemical weapons response poses major test for Obama

WASHINGTON — The apparent poison gas attack that killed hundreds of Syrian civilians last week is testing President Obama's views on military intervention, international law and the United Nations as no previous crisis has done.

The former constitutional law professor, who came to office determined to end what critics called the cowboy foreign policy of George W. Bush, now is wrestling with some of the same moral and legal realities that led Bush to invade Iraq without clear U.N. consent in 2003.

As U.S. officials discussed diplomatic and military options with allies in Europe and the Middle East, White House advisors indicated Tuesday that they were unlikely to seek either a vote in Congress or at the U.N. Security Council to authorize use of force. Last week, Obama said he had concerns about launching an attack on Syrian President Bashar Assad's government without a U.N. mandate.

Russia and China would almost certainly veto or delay any U.N. resolution condemning Syria or sanctioning reprisal. Top British and French officials, who are likely to support U.S. military action, have signaled they don't think a detour to the U.N. would be worthwhile.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that virtually no one doubted that Assad's government had carried out a chemical attack last week. But the Obama administration has yet to reveal the intelligence that led to that conclusion.

Syria's foreign minister, Walid Moallem, denied that government forces had used chemical weapons. "I dare them to produce any single piece of evidence," he said at a news conference in Damascus, the Syrian capital.

White House officials cautioned that Obama was still considering the options, but the administration appeared positioned to act quickly once he chooses a course. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said during a visit to Brunei that the Pentagon was prepared to strike targets in Syria and hinted that such a move could come within days.

Some experts said U.S. warships and submarines in the eastern Mediterranean could fire cruise missiles at Syrian targets as early as Thursday night, beginning a campaign that could last two or three nights. Obama leaves next Tuesday for a four day trip to Sweden and Russia, which strongly supports Assad's government, for the G-20 economic summit.

One U.S. official who has been briefed on the options on Syria said he believed the White House would seek a level of intensity "just muscular enough not to get mocked" but not so devastating that it would prompt a response from Syrian allies Iran and Russia.

"They are looking at what is just enough to mean something, just enough to be more than symbolic," he said.

Obama and his top aides have shared intelligence with key members of Congress. But White House aides made it clear Tuesday that Obama would not wait for Congress to return from its monthlong recess on Sept. 9, and House and Senate leaders signaled no plans to call members back for an emergency session.

"I can't imagine the president is going to do much more than the outreach he's already doing," said Jim Manley, former aide to Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after a briefing that the administration was "proceeding cautiously." Obama is "considering a broad range of options that have been presented by our military leaders," he said.

Still, a growing number of lawmakers in both parties pressed the White House to seek authorization from Congress.

Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.) collected nearly three dozen signatures of House members on a letter he intended to send to the White House. It states that military action without a congressional vote "would violate the separation of powers that is clearly delineated in the Constitution." Congress stood ready to return for a debate on the issue, the letter says.

Other lawmakers worried that a few days of missile strikes might be counterproductive.

Sen. Christopher S. Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said it would be "little more than a slap on the wrist" to the Syrian government, but could provoke retaliation from Assad that could draw America into "a much wider and much longer-term conflict that could mean an even greater loss of life within Syria."

Because of safety concerns, the team of U.N. inspectors in Damascus was forced to scrub a planned visit Tuesday to one of the suburbs allegedly hit by poison gas. They are to leave Syria on Sunday, but they probably will be withdrawn earlier if Washington warns that missile strikes are imminent.

"I would doubt" the United States or its allies would attack while the U.N. team was still in Syria, said Jean Pascal Zanders, a Belgian scientist and author of a blog that focuses on chemical weapons issues.

The U.N. team includes experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the World Health Organization. Led by a Swedish scientist, Ake Sellstrom, the investigators are seeking to determine if sarin nerve gas or other toxic agents were used in Syria, though not who used them.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has summoned Parliament to a special session Thursday. In addition to the British and French, Germany has indicated it could support military action if use of chemical weapons was confirmed. Turkey and Saudi Arabia, two regional foes of Assad, have indicated they could support a military response.

The Arab League said Tuesday that it had determined that the Syrian government was responsible, and it asked the United Nations to punish Damascus.

The White House has not put forward a legal framework for armed action in Syria, which has not threatened or attacked U.S. citizens or facilities, the usual justification for punitive strikes. Normally, nations may not use military force against other nations except in self-defense or when acting at the behest of the U.N. Security Council.

"Neither of those options is obviously in play here," said Ashley Deeks, a former State Department lawyer who teaches at the University of Virginia. She said the administration was looking at the 1999 intervention in Kosovo for legal precedent.

President Clinton joined with NATO allies in a so-called humanitarian war that targeted Yugoslav forces who had besieged Kosovo. Russia and China objected and called the "unilateral use of force … a flagrant violation" of the U.N. Charter. It took nearly three months of bombing to end the conflict.

Since then, lawyers who specialize in international law have been split over whether the United States must closely abide by international law or sometimes take military action to save lives.

Obama's aides include some who are wary of military action as well as backers of "humanitarian interventionism." Samantha Power, now the ambassador to the United Nations, repeatedly urged Washington to take bold action to stop genocide overseas before she joined government.

"Some people inside the administration have argued for a new legal doctrine that would say the United States has a legal right and an obligation to intervene to protect individuals who are being abused," said John B. Bellinger III, the State Department legal advisor under Bush. "But my guess is the president will see that as too risky, that a broad new doctrine could be used by others in ways that we don't foresee."

As recently as Thursday, Obama warned about intervening without U.N. support.

"If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented," Obama told CNN, "then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it. Do we have the coalition to make it work? Those are considerations that we have to take into account."

Over the weekend, as more evidence of a chemical attack surfaced, the White House dramatically changed its language.

Aides decided to clip references to a "U.N. mandate" and "international law" from the administration's talking points. Since then, Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden have said Assad violated international "norms" regarding use of banned weapons.

 Warpig1815 wrote:
I highly doubt that Russia will really risk stirring up things with the both the USA and the UK - their current economic situation thrives on the trade to and from the west. I would be surprised if they wanted to upset that balance over Syria.

 Warpig1815 wrote:
I highly doubt that Russia will really risk stirring up things with the both the USA and the UK - their current economic situation thrives on the trade to and from the west. I would be surprised if they wanted to upset that balance over Syria.

The revelations come amid high tension in the Middle East, with US, British, and French warship poised for missile strikes in Syria. Iran has threatened to retaliate.
The strategic jitters pushed Brent crude prices to a five-month high of $112 a barrel. “We are only one incident away from a serious oil spike. The market is a lot tighter than people think,” said Chris Skrebowski, editor of Petroleum Review.
Leaked transcripts of a closed-door meeting between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan shed an extraordinary light on the hard-nosed Realpolitik of the two sides.
Prince Bandar, head of Saudi intelligence, allegedly confronted the Kremlin with a mix of inducements and threats in a bid to break the deadlock over Syria. “Let us examine how to put together a unified Russian-Saudi strategy on the subject of oil. The aim is to agree on the price of oil and production quantities that keep the price stable in global oil markets,” he said at the four-hour meeting with Mr Putin. They met at Mr Putin’s dacha outside Moscow three weeks ago.
“We understand Russia’s great interest in the oil and gas in the Mediterranean from Israel to Cyprus. And we understand the importance of the Russian gas pipeline to Europe. We are not interested in competing with that. We can cooperate in this area,” he said, purporting to speak with the full backing of the US.
The talks appear to offer an alliance between the OPEC cartel and Russia, which together produce over 40m barrels a day of oil, 45pc of global output. Such a move would alter the strategic landscape.
The details of the talks were first leaked to the Russian press. A more detailed version has since appeared in the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir, which has Hezbollah links and is hostile to the Saudis.
As-Safir said Prince Bandar pledged to safeguard Russia’s naval base in Syria if the Assad regime is toppled, but he also hinted at Chechen terrorist attacks on Russia’s Winter Olympics in Sochi if there is no accord. “I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us,” he allegedly said.
Prince Bandar went on to say that Chechens operating in Syria were a pressure tool that could be switched on an off. “These groups do not scare us. We use them in the face of the Syrian regime but they will have no role in Syria’s political future.”
President Putin has long been pushing for a global gas cartel, issuing the `Moscow Declaration’ last to month “defend suppliers and resist unfair pressure”. This would entail beefing up the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), a talking shop.
Mr Skrebowski said it is unclear what the Saudis can really offer the Russians on gas, beyond using leverage over Qatar and others to cut output of liquefied natural gas (LGN). “The Qataris are not going to obey Saudi orders,” he said.
Saudi Arabia could help boost oil prices by restricting its own supply. This would be a shot in the arm for Russia, which is near recession and relies on an oil price near $100 to fund the budget.
But it would be a dangerous strategy for the Saudis if it pushed prices to levels that endangered the world’s fragile economic recovery. Crude oil stocks in the US have already fallen sharply this year. Goldman Sachs said the “surplus cushion” in global stocks built up since 2008 has been completely eliminated.
Mr Skrebowski said trouble is brewing in a string of key supply states. “Libya is reverting to war lordism. Nigerian is drifting into a bandit state with steady loss of output. And Iraq is going back to the sort of Sunni-Shia civil war we saw in 2006-2007,” he said.
The Putin-Bandar meeting was stormy, replete with warnings of a “dramatic turn” in Syria. Mr Putin was unmoved by the Saudi offer, though western pressure has escalated since then. “Our stance on Assad will never change. We believe that the Syrian regime is the best speaker on behalf of the Syrian people, and not those liver eaters,” he said, referring to footage showing a Jihadist rebel eating the heart and liver of a Syrian soldier.
Prince Bandar in turn warned that there can be “no escape from the military option” if Russia declines the olive branch. Events are unfolding exactly as he foretold.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Lets lay our cards on the table here. The most successful Western military interventions since the end of WW2 have been Grenada and the Falklands. everything else has been a hamstrung clusterfeth or has seen muddled aims get even more tangled.

Mali seems to have turned out well. Panama seems ok.

 Warpig1815 wrote:
The problem is, that the BBC haven't really focused on the Russian side of things, so I can't really talk too much on that hand - but I can say that it quotes the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying that his nation has 'no plans to go to war with anyone'. Hence, I reckon that Russia is only likely to react by imposing punitive measures such as increased weapons supply to Damascus.

EDIT: I should probably have clarified my first post by stating that by 'Stirring', I meant a direct military opposal - I am well aware of their arms deals.

Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran
The U.S. knew Hussein was launching some of the worst chemical attacks in history -- and still gave him a hand.
BY SHANE HARRIS AND MATTHEW M. AID | AUGUST 26, 2013

The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America's military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned..

In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq's war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein's military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.

The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq's favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration's long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn't disclose.

U.S. officials have long denied acquiescing to Iraqi chemical attacks, insisting that Hussein's government never announced he was going to use the weapons. But retired Air Force Col. Rick Francona, who was a military attaché in Baghdad during the 1988 strikes, paints a different picture.

"The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas. They didn't have to. We already knew," he told Foreign Policy.

According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence officials like Francona, the U.S. had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks beginning in 1983. At the time, Iran was publicly alleging that illegal chemical attacks were carried out on its forces, and was building a case to present to the United Nations. But it lacked the evidence implicating Iraq, much of which was contained in top secret reports and memoranda sent to the most senior intelligence officials in the U.S. government. The CIA declined to comment for this story.

In contrast to today's wrenching debate over whether the United States should intervene to stop alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government, the United States applied a cold calculus three decades ago to Hussein's widespread use of chemical weapons against his enemies and his own people. The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted.

In the documents, the CIA said that Iran might not discover persuasive evidence of the weapons' use -- even though the agency possessed it. Also, the agency noted that the Soviet Union had previously used chemical agents in Afghanistan and suffered few repercussions.

It has been previously reported that the United States provided tactical intelligence to Iraq at the same time that officials suspected Hussein would use chemical weapons. But the CIA documents, which sat almost entirely unnoticed in a trove of declassified material at the National Archives in College Park, Md., combined with exclusive interviews with former intelligence officials, reveal new details about the depth of the United States' knowledge of how and when Iraq employed the deadly agents. They show that senior U.S. officials were being regularly informed about the scale of the nerve gas attacks. They are tantamount to an official American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical weapons attacks ever launched.

 BrassScorpion wrote:
Apparently gas attacks only matter to certain people in the US Government when particular people or governments are using them.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_cia_files_prove_america_helped_saddam_as_he_gassed_iran

Here's the first page of the article, visit the link above to read the whole thing.

 Warpig1815 wrote:
To be honest, all the US, UK and France (Though I'm not sure what role France thinks it's gonna take) seem to be doing is prematurely flexing their muscles, without waiting for adefinitive UN resolution?. It's to little to late now. If anything, this matter should have been addressed when it kicked off - back in 2011 along with Libya. It seems like now it's just a rush to see who can 'intervene' faster as they've only just realised how bad things have gotten. So what does Russia stand to gain, aside from the supposed political high ground in the Middle East?

 Warpig1815 wrote:
So if that's the case, then why is it presented (At least from a BBC aspect) that Russia simply wants a political solution. Mind you, having said that, it would vindicate their goals if they could force down the USA politically...

On Syria, here are 14 points that need to be pondered a lot more than they are. I think in may ways we Westerners are misreading what is going on in Syria - something I reviewed in the free-swim portion of Midrats Sunday.

1. Bashar is the second son whose oldest brother was to be next in line until died in a car accident in '94. Bashar was a mild-mannered ophthalmologist and had less than 7-yrs to transition from a London eye doctor to head of a government.

2. Bashar is the leader of a family who has seen two of his brothers die prematurely in accidents and a brother in law killed in a civil war. His only surviving brother is the head of the Republican Guard and a survivor of a previous assassination attempt.

3. He is a member of a small Shi'ite sect who are not even seen as Muslims by Sunni fundamentalists. They are hated by most Syrians for the preferential treatment they have received for over 40 years. He knows if he does not hold power, Alawites will be slaughtered wholesale. His tribe does not have the best reputation either.

4. He has no options for him, his family, his tribe and his co-religionists other than victory.

5. He is of no serious threat to his neighbors and is focused on one thing; survival.

6. Some focus on taking out his "offensive power" - most of which is on paper only. Even if he had the ability, he has nothing to gain by attacking Western naval and air targets when his capital is infested with insurgents. He gains nothing from attacking his neighbor to the south. He gains nothing from attacking British bases in Cyprus.

7. What he needs are three things; time, Russia & Iran. Giving the West an excuse to attack him buys him nothing.

8. Always ask, "Who gains?" Small uses of gas helpful at the Tactical level? No. Useful at the Operational level? No. From a Strategic or Political level, does his use of gas produce any positive effects? No; for him.

9. If the international community thinks that Assad used poison gas, who gains positive Political and Strategic effects? The anti-Assad forces.

10. If Assad falls, who gets possession of all of Syria's poison gas stockpiles? The anti-Assad forces.

11. Who in the anti-Assad forces has the most military power to keep and control the gas? Al-Qaeda affiliated groups.

12. Who has the most to gain from Assad's use of gas? Al-Qaeda.

13. What is one weapon-set Al-Qaeda has wanted to use against the West since even before 9/11? WMD; chemical, biological, or nuclear.

14. What is the #1 target of Al-Qaeda if they had WMD? The West in general, USA specifically.

So, if we contribute to the fall of Assad, we are giving our enemy the weapons they want to kill thousands of OUR people.

If that is the case - is it in our national interest to see Assad survive? Yes.

Is that pretty? No.

Which is worse, thousands of dead Sunnis or thousands of dead Shi'ite & Christians? They are all bad ... but none of them are worse than thousands to tens of thousands of dead Americans gassed in subways in 2016.