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Well considering the vast number of wars we've had since Presidents did more of that "declaration of war" thing and expressed what that deep intelligence was, it doesn't look like your theory has worked very well.

 Frazzled wrote:
Well considering the vast number of wars we've had since Presidents did more of that "declaration of war" thing and expressed what that deep intelligence was, it doesn't look like your theory has worked very well.

I'd have to ask you to clarify that statement.

I will point out one thing, and I know this will sound incredibly callous, but the US is going to have wars, it could actually use more wars like Iraq, as opposed to most of it's previous wars. Casualties grand total for Iraq and Afghanistan combined is around 57k. Per capita, that's the lowest casualty rate of any actual war the US has fought since the Philippine Insurrection. Afghanistan has been going on for almost half as long as Vietnam, grand total, but has only had 1/10th the casualties. I know these don't directly correlate (technology and tactics, etc), but to put it in perspective: The Union lost more in three days at Gettysburg than the US in ten years in Afghanistan, and there were not that many Americans alive at the time. The US Army lost more KIA during Operation Overlord than the total casualties for Afghanistan. Killed, wounded, and missing, they lost twice the combined numbers for Iraq and Afghanistan from June to August 1944.



Not to say that they're not bad places to be and that the men don't need to come home, but looking at it strictly from a context of cost in lives and material, compared to most wars the US has been involved in, they have not been too bad.

I’ll bite:
Korea: bloody draw. We’re still there, trapped in this weird dance of craptown with a psycho in a 5th world country.
Vietnam: How’d that turn out?
Somalia: Bad
Kosova: Bad to midlin. drug lord and slavers run the place.
Afghanistan 1: Beat the Soviets but helped form AlQaeda. I’d rather have the Rooskies. At least they were sane.
Afghanistan II: We did ok going after AlQaeda. Then it turned into “lets build a country” Crap fest we’re being run out of.
Iraq 1: We went after the wrong guys.
Iraq 2: We went after the wrong guys (again) and now the bad guys effectively run most of the country.
But not to be outdone:
Libya: helped change that from a dictatorship to Somalia lite. Awesome job there Ricky.
Egypt: Mmmm. Helped kick out a military dictator, replaced by an Islamic dictator, not replaced by…a military dictator.
Syria: Islamofascists who kill prisoners and persecute Christians on one side, Nazi dictator (look up the structure of the Baath party) on the other.

Crazily, just staying out of everyone’s affairs might have been a better course…

 Frazzled wrote:
I’ll bite:
Korea: bloody draw. We’re still there, trapped in this weird dance of craptown with a psycho in a 5th world country.
Vietnam: How’d that turn out?
Somalia: Bad
Kosova: Bad to midlin. drug lord and slavers run the place.
Afghanistan 1: Beat the Soviets but helped form AlQaeda. I’d rather have the Rooskies. At least they were sane.
Afghanistan II: We did ok going after AlQaeda. Then it turned into “lets build a country” Crap fest we’re being run out of.
Iraq 1: We went after the wrong guys.
Iraq 2: We went after the wrong guys (again) and now the bad guys effectively run most of the country.
But not to be outdone:
Libya: helped change that from a dictatorship to Somalia lite. Awesome job there Ricky.
Egypt: Mmmm. Helped kick out a military dictator, replaced by an Islamic dictator, not replaced by…a military dictator.
Syria: Islamofascists who kill prisoners and persecute Christians on one side, Nazi dictator (look up the structure of the Baath party) on the other.

Crazily, just staying out of everyone’s affairs might have been a better course…

I agree

 Frazzled wrote:

Crazily, just staying out of everyone’s affairs might have been a better course…

World War 2: Stayed out of it until it bit America on the ass and had a body count to dwarf all the others combined. So, staying out of it worked *great* too.

And to the fine inhabitants of England, I might point out that the track record for negotiating with dictators for peace has been almost as bad as the US track record for invading a country and having things turn out as planned.



Peace in Our Time? Remember? How'd that turn out?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

Crazily, just staying out of everyone’s affairs might have been a better course…

World War 2: Stayed out of it until it bit America on the ass and had a body count to dwarf all the others combined. So, staying out of it worked *great* too.

And to the fine inhabitants of England, I might point out that the track record for negotiating with dictators for peace has been almost as bad as the US track record for invading a country and having things turn out as planned.



Peace in Our Time? Remember? How'd that turn out?

It only "bit us in the ass" because we embargoed Japan. Left well enough alone and we could have been friends with everyone. imagine all the stuff we could have sold! B17s to the Germans, trucks to the Russians, oil and proper aircraft carriers to the Japanese...

 Frazzled wrote:

It only "bit us in the ass" because we embargoed Japan. Left well enough alone and we could have been friends with everyone. imagine all the stuff we could have sold! B17s to the Germans, trucks to the Russians, oil and proper aircraft carriers to the Japanese...

Frazz, minor point, at the beginning of the war Japanese Aircraft carriers were more advanced than the US. It was Radar that gave the US it's advantage, not the quality, or even initially the quantity of their carriers.

Both Hitler and the Kaiser before him drew up plans to strike the North American mainland. Considering that part of Hitler's plan was to subvert the Mexican government, you might have had the Das Reich division rolling across the Rio Grande.

 Seaward wrote:

We elect presidents to lead. We can kick 'em out if we don't like where they're leading us, but the notion that national defense decisions should be made based on public opinion polling is one I do not subscribe to.

Part of being an effective leader is understanding the disposition of the people you are leading.

 dogma wrote:

Part of being an effective leader is understanding the disposition of the people you are leading.

And part of it is to shape that disposition so that it aligns with your goals.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

It only "bit us in the ass" because we embargoed Japan. Left well enough alone and we could have been friends with everyone. imagine all the stuff we could have sold! B17s to the Germans, trucks to the Russians, oil and proper aircraft carriers to the Japanese...

Frazz, minor point, at the beginning of the war Japanese Aircraft carriers were more advanced than the US. It was Radar that gave the US it's advantage, not the quality, or even initially the quantity of their carriers.

The Enterprise disagrees with you. But having said that, we're not just going to sell the radar. you want the radar, you gots to buy the ship too. But its ok, we offer an extended service plan.

Both Hitler and the Kaiser before him drew up plans to strike the North American mainland. Considering that part of Hitler's plan was to subvert the Mexican government, you might have had the Das Reich division rolling across the Rio Grande.

1. they weren't serious and Mexico isn't stupid.
2. Every country has contingency plans. I'm sure we have plans to invade the Moon and the Isle of Man.
3. there would be no need for conflict with one of your main suppliers
4. despite all that, the only outcome would have been a lot of dead Germans.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

And part of it is to shape that disposition so that it aligns with your goals.

Shaping the disposition of a nation the size of the United States takes a very long time, and military intervention of any kind has not been a major component of the Democratic platform in many years.

Not since Clinton.

 Frazzled wrote:


It only "bit us in the ass" because we embargoed Japan. Left well enough alone and we could have been friends with everyone. imagine all the stuff we could have sold! B17s to the Germans, trucks to the Russians, oil and proper aircraft carriers to the Japanese...

The Axis powers were fundamentally evil. The situation necessitated intervention. GW I was also necessary to protect our strategic interests in the Middle East, and a complete success. Our failure in Iraq was in not realizing that Saddam would have made a rather interesting asset. Surely he caused us his own share of problems, but as a secular dictator he could be easily bought.


The problem with the current conflict is that neither side is better than the other morally or strategically. We'd be wasting American lives and dollars to, at best, support a side that hates us.

We should have acted sooner.

 sing your life wrote:
We should have acted sooner.

If by sooner you mean never I agree. As it is now the UK isn't acting at all. Be our guest.

I'm not getting the comparison to WW2. COmpletely different opponents with completely different potential outcomes.

 Frazzled wrote:

 sing your life wrote:
We should have acted sooner.

If by sooner you mean never I agree. As it is now the UK isn't acting at all. Be our guest.

No, I mean that we should have acted on syria before it got out of hand [about a year ago].

Okay, I'm a little confused. I understand opposition to full scale invasion and boots on the ground, etc. I understand that even if the majority of rebels can be considered "good guys" they have some nasty friends, so backing and supplying them is a questionable endevour.

But I fail to see the downside of limited cruise missile strikes. Will they achieve anything? Not really, but that's sort of the point isn't it? Obama is a Democrat, he doesn't want to risk American lives and he doesn't want to start his own Iraq. Missile strikes run neither of these risks. Assad simply has absolutely no way whatsoever of retaliating.

As far as I can see, lobbing a few missiles and drones at Assad's forces wouldn't significantly change the strategic situation on the ground and would serve as an effective reminder to Assad that he's allowed to massacre his own people and such, but he has to do so according to the rules, and the rules say no chems.

As to the cost, a few tens of millions is less than the tiniest drop in the world's largest bucket, so again, I just don't see the problem. If the only downside is cost, it's the equivelent of spending weeks arguing over a few pennies.

I'm open to the possibility I'm wrong, so I welcome criticism.

 AndrewC wrote:
This started because of the heavyhandedness of the Assad regime resulted in protests calling for his resignation after protesters calling for a revolution were arrested, tortured and killed.

Democracy is the last thing that started this.

Large numbers of protestors called for the leader's resignation, and were violently persecuted.... and that has nothing to do with democracy.

What the hell?

 xole wrote:
I'm not getting the comparison to WW2. COmpletely different opponents with completely different potential outcomes.

WW2 was (partially) the result of doing nothing and pretending that the problem would just go away on it's own (England had a prime minster who said as much, IIRC). A lot of the same reasons were given before the outbreak of the war in Europe (and even after in the US) of why it was someone else's problem, and if we don't get involved it will all blow over. My point is that while, as certain posters like to point out, times that the US intervened were bad, the times they did nothing until it was pretty late in the game turned out much worse by several orders of magnitude. While in this case, it's unlikely that Assad will suddenly invade Poland, there's still the likelihood that doing nothing comes back to bite the US in unforeseen ways as well as the more obvious ones.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sebster wrote:

Large numbers of protestors called for the leader's resignation, and were violently persecuted.... and that has nothing to do with democracy.

What the hell?

Point of fact, Democracy in Syria, and the US' opposition to democracy in Syria back in the late 1940's, is actually what started this chain of events.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Username Invalid wrote:
Assad simply has absolutely no way whatsoever of retaliating.

That's not actually true. When Israel carried out Operation Orchard, Syria came close to launching a full scale chemical attack on Israel, and only the fact the US made it plain it had supplied Israel with nukes for a counter attack kept that from happening. There's also the big unknown as to how much of what nuclear tech that Russia has provided Syria recently.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
WW2 was (partially) the result of doing nothing and pretending that the problem would just go away on it's own (England had a prime minster who said as much, IIRC).

Not really. Chamberlain's 'peace in our time' is certainly a line that looked terrible in the wake of what happened, but it wasn't a very good reflection of his actual position. While he might have given that line that when he returned home from Munich, the first thing he did was double British defence spending. He was under no illusion as to what was coming.

Ribbentrop was actually outraged at the outcome of Munich, by the way, as he felt the British had denied them them their cause for war, which they could have used to justify an invasion of France. As it was they had to delay for a period, and with their invasion of Poland accept that the world saw quite clearly that Germany was undertaking military expansion.

And Chamberlain continued to serve as Prime Minister during the early stages of the war, only being replaced after the Narvik mess (which ironically enough was more the fault of Churchill, if the blame could be placed at the hands of anyone in the political leadership).

Point of fact, Democracy in Syria, and the US' opposition to democracy in Syria back in the late 1940's, is actually what started this chain of events.

Sort of, maybe. Seven decades of history is long time to linking cause and effect chains. The current movements have very little direct connection to those democratic parties of the past.

I mean, I agree that efforts to dismiss Syrian efforts at democracy are mistaken, and that interference in the nation's democracy in the past was shortsighted and completely immoral, but tying it all together is just a little too neat.

 dogma wrote:
Part of being an effective leader is understanding the disposition of the people you are leading.

Understand it by all means. But I'll say it again: making national security decisions based on the opinion of a largely uninformed and indifferent populace is a horrible, and dangerous, and horribly dangerous idea.

 Seaward wrote:
Understand it by all means. But I'll say it again: making national security decisions based on the opinion of a largely uninformed and indifferent populace is a horrible, and dangerous, and horribly dangerous idea.

True. But ignoring public opinion entirely and relying on select advisors is also horribly dangerous (echo chamber and all that).

That's kind of why leadership is such a tricky thing.

Especially when those advisors are retiring soon to a cushy job at raytheon or to "consult".

 Seaward wrote:

Understand it by all means. But I'll say it again: making national security decisions based on the opinion of a largely uninformed and indifferent populace is a horrible, and dangerous, and horribly dangerous idea.

I doubt very seriously that anyone in a position of power bases national security decisions solely on the whim of the electorate. Of course that factors in, because even beyond reelection public figures have to consider the political costs associated with all their decisions, but that's pretty much where it stops.

To use the current situation as an example: if Obama moves beyond a token intervention in Syria it will damage his political image. Now, he doesn't necessarily have to care about this as he will essentially "out" of politics once this term is over. However, if his political image is tarnished then any member of his party that is associated with him will have a more difficult bid for office and, more importantly, and legislation that is associated with him will have a more difficult road to passage. Given this he has to weigh the value of an intervention in Syria against the effect it might have on something else he wants to accomplish and, unlike in a place like Israel*, security does not trump all other concerns in the United States. In certain situations it absolutely can, but that's far the case in a universal sense.




*Not to be construed as an attack on Israeli policy.

 dogma wrote:
I doubt very seriously that anyone in a position of power bases national security decisions solely on the whim of the electorate.

I certainly hope not.

But what started us down this path was Ouze asking if those who support intervention in Syria still support it in light of the fact that public polling suggests most Americans don't. It sounds like we're both in agreement that polling shouldn't be what makes that decision.

 xole wrote:
I'm not getting the comparison to WW2. COmpletely different opponents with completely different potential outcomes.

Its called "appeal to emotion". Since BaronIveagh doesn't really have any logical argument to support his position, he is relegated to saying things like "if we don't attack Syria then the Nazis will kill 6 million Jews" to try and garner support for it.

PhantomViper wrote:

 xole wrote:
I'm not getting the comparison to WW2. COmpletely different opponents with completely different potential outcomes.

Its called "appeal to emotion". Since BaronIveagh doesn't really have any logical argument to support his position, he is relegated to saying things like "if we don't attack Syria then the Nazis will kill 6 million Jews" to try and garner support for it.

I don't agree with BaronIveagh's stance at all, but I did think some of his arguments in the thread were compelling (some were less so, such as the US constitution ones, not to rehash that). Specifically why bombing the areas would be a bad idea, and the general argument that, to sum it up pithily, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

While I disagree - in my experience evil prevails anyway regardless of what you do - I think it's a fair argument too, the with great responsibility one. As a kid who grew up reading Spider-Man it certainly resonated with me, as well as that sometimes you have to protect a world that fears and hates you for your mutations, and that even if you have a bad heart or dead parents, you can still do great things if you have a giant boat of money... Look, any analogy breaks down if you take it too far, but I don't think they were all just appeals to emotion.

 Ouze wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

 xole wrote:
I'm not getting the comparison to WW2. COmpletely different opponents with completely different potential outcomes.

Its called "appeal to emotion". Since BaronIveagh doesn't really have any logical argument to support his position, he is relegated to saying things like "if we don't attack Syria then the Nazis will kill 6 million Jews" to try and garner support for it.

I don't agree with BaronIveagh's stance at all, but I did think some of his arguments in the thread were compelling (some were less so, such as the US constitution ones, not to rehash that). Specifically why bombing the areas would be a bad idea, and the general argument that, to sum it up pithily, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

While I disagree - in my experience evil prevails anyway regardless of what you do - I think it's a fair argument too, the with great responsibility one. As a kid who grew up reading Spider-Man it certainly resonated with me, as well as that sometimes you have to protect a world that fears and hates you for your mutations, and that even if you have a bad heart, you can still do great things id you have a giant boat of money... Look, any analogy breaks down if you take it too far, but I don't think they were all just appeals to emotion.

I didn't say they were all appeals to emotion, I said his comparisons to WW2 were appeals to emotion.

Also I'm sorry to say, but the US really isn't the world's super-hero... For starters almost everyone that you guys tried to "help" in the past few years (to continue the analogy), has came out of it worse than they were before US intervention, so I think its time for the US to hang up its mask and concentrate on just being another reporter (where the hell has this analogy taken me?! ).

PhantomViper wrote:
For starters almost everyone that you guys tried to "help" in the past few years (to continue the analogy), has came out of it worse than they were before US intervention, so I think its time for the US to hang up its mask and concentrate on just being another reporter (where the hell has this analogy taken me?! ).

Such as?

We went into neither Afghanistan nor Iraq to help. Those weren't humanitarian interventions.