Syria - hype or war?

[mamabearCali]

So our pitiful president has a temper tantrum and Putin takes him to the woodshed and shows him how real leaders work international diplomacy. Good Heavens. I hope we don't pay for our president's hubris on our backs. Never ever thought I would see the day where a Russian...an ex-KGB.....would have more tact, discretion, subtlety and morals than an American president.

What I am thankful for is that someone had the guts to cool off our president before he put us into WWIII. What I worry about is why Putin did it. He did not do it to pull our posteriors out of the flame.....so there is another shoe to drop somewhere. If we are very lucky he was just being responsible enough as a world player to keep lightweight from really messing things up. I don't want to think about what motivated him if we are not so lucky.

[Beiruty]

So our pitiful president has a temper tantrum and Putin takes him to the woodshed and shows him how real leaders work international diplomacy. Good Heavens. I hope we don't pay for our president's hubris on our backs. Never ever thought I would see the day where a Russian...an ex-KGB.....would have more tact, discretion, subtlety and morals than an American president.

What I am thankful for is that someone had the guts to cool off our president before he put us into WWIII. What I worry about is why Putin did it. He did not do it to pull our posteriors out of the flame.....so there is another shoe to drop somewhere. If we are very lucky he was just being responsible enough as a world player to keep lightweight from really messing things up. I don't want to think about what motivated him if we are not so lucky.

Because losing the last Russian Navy support base on the Mediterranean sea and last Cold War Client for Russian Rusty tanks and useless obsolete warfare gear is very bad for Russia.

[handog]

Qatar is the largest exporter of liquid natural gas in the world and Assad won't let them build a natural gas pipeline through Syria to Europe. The pipeline would hit Russia in the pocket book. A regime change and pipeline would be good for the Saudis and Qatar and Israel. The US would have more control in the region and a step towards imperial dominance. This has nothing to do with chemical weapons.

[mamabearCali]

ah ha.....I had no idea of all of that. Nice move Putin....sadly I don't think our president is a good chess player. He is like those kids in high school that boasted of their computer scores, but when playing against a real person were checkmated in just a few minutes.

[jmain]

Looks like the U.S. is no longer the number one super power.

Russia calling the shots and Obama just got played like a dog in heat.

[cb1000rider]

sadly I don't think our president is a good chess player

Maybe. I think we probably don't know about 99% of the chess that occurs in the office of the President.
In this circumstance, I agree with you. What a colossal mistake to draw a line in the sand and not be willing to act on it.
I get asking Congress. However, he'd need to the stamina to act anyway if Congress didn't authorize... He put himself in that position.

The whole Russia disarm thing gives him an out here.. Luckily.

It's a tough job. Isolationism worked really badly for us. It contributed to the death in Nazi Germany and probably lead to Pearl Harbor.
Imperialism, that was another mess...
I've had enough 3rd world wars. It's hard to sit back and claim that we're a moral country and civilian mass death in other countries if we have the power to stop it..
Yea, it's a tough job.

[Dave2]

sadly I don't think our president is a good chess player

Maybe. I think we probably don't know about 99% of the chess that occurs in the office of the President.
In this circumstance, I agree with you. What a colossal mistake to draw a line in the sand and not be willing to act on it.
I get asking Congress. However, he'd need to the stamina to act anyway if Congress didn't authorize... He put himself in that position.

Or ask congress before drawing said line.

[jmain]

I feel pretty stupid reading some of these post regarding the level of engagement I can have to a thread I started...I had no idea.

That being said, I have learned a ton following this and it has encouraged me to research and learn more about this issue.

Thanks for those that have great insight to this debate.



I just hope it can stay civil and not get locked up due to personal attacks.

[philip964]

So have we been training and equiping the "rebels" all a long? So this would be a big loss for our current policy?

[RoyGBiv]

http://booksbikesboomsticks.blogspot.co ... fused.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Anyway, the president was on the televisor last night urging us to memorialize those who were murdered on this day twelve years ago by flying air strikes in support of the faction that murdered them. Whatever else may be said, that took an amazing level of chutzpah, to call on a nation to go to war in support of terrorists the night before going to lay a wreath at a ceremony commemorating their victims.

This sums it up nicely, IMO

[The Annoyed Man]

Putin's direct response: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opini ... syria.html.

It's self-serving, but it makes some sense too. Never thought I'd say that.

[Dadtodabone]

Putin's direct response: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opini ... syria.html.

It's self-serving, but it makes some sense too. Never thought I'd say that.

Under the KGB thug exterior, beats the heart of a Statesman? Nah.

[The Annoyed Man]

Putin's direct response: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opini ... syria.html.

It's self-serving, but it makes some sense too. Never thought I'd say that.

Under the KGB thug exterior, beats the heart of a Statesman? Nah.

I'm not saying he's a statesman. Not at all. Witness my past statements about him: search.php?keywords=Putin&terms=all&aut ... mit=Search" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What I AM saying is that he has got the measure of Obama, and in that regard, what he says makes sense:

Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country. [This is absolutely correct. ~TAM] There are few champions of democracy in Syria. But there are more than enough Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government. [This is also absolutely correct. ~TAM] The United States State Department has designated Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, fighting with the opposition, as terrorist organizations. [THIS is also absolutely correct. ~TAM] This internal conflict, fueled by foreign weapons supplied to the opposition, is one of the bloodiest in the world.

Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern. Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria? After all, after fighting in Libya, extremists moved on to Mali. This threatens us all. [This is also absolutely possible. ~TAM]

That is why I previously said: "It's self-serving, but it makes some sense too. Never thought I'd say that."

I don't think Putin is some kind of elder statesman, but neither does someone get to his office without being very intelligent. (I do not conflate intelligence with morality. Satan is intelligent, but he is not moral.) But there is one thing that I will give Putin, he absolutely advances Russia's interests at all times.....unlike Obama and the U.S.'s interests. And sometimes, Russia's interests ought to be our own. For example: during the Cold War, Mutually Assured Destruction was in both of our interests. When the USSR collapsed, it was in OUR interests to help responsible former soviet leaders maintain control over the former USSR's nuclear arsenal so that it did not fall into the hands of the Russian mafia and Chechen terrorists. I can think of other examples where their interests and ours cross, if you'd like, but I think I've made my point. In the above two paragraphs of Putin's that I quoted, he IS right:

1. Syria's civil war is NOT a battle for democracy. It is a battle to depose a hated dictator. Does anyone think, given the middle-east's propensity to elevate strongmen, that Syria would become a democratic nation in the absence of Assad? Does anybody seriously think that if there were an attempt to establish a democracy, that the radicalized factions in Syria would allow that democracy to continue to exist?.
2. Our own State Department HAS designated "Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, fighting with the opposition, as terrorist organizations." What in tarnation are we doing proposing to place U.S. military might behind their efforts? It does not matter that there are pro-democracy rebels in the fight. The terrorists.......and they ARE terrorists.......are operating under the principle that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," and as soon as the rebels win (IF they win), the terrorists will start operating under the principle that "the friend of my enemy is my enemy." If we aid them now, and that aid is successful, we merely temporarily delay the inevitable.
3. In the second paragraph, Putin states Russia's case, and he's right. Chechen (Russian) radicals will go to syria to fight......just like they did in Iraq, and in Afghanistan......and when they return, they will bring back everything they learned in Syria to further terorrize Russia. That may not be OUR fight, but it is a legitimate concern for whomever is the president of Russia. And even though this threatens Russia more than it does us, it DOES threaten us. We have proof positive of radicalized American muslims, either fighting in the middle east, or like Nidal Hasan, taking their encouragement and inspiration from the middle east to terrorize Americans at home. Tell me this: with a demonstrably porous southern border, the administration's total unwillingness to defend it, and radicalized Americans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki) who might potentially survive Syria to sneak back into the U.S. across that southern border, how long will it be before they carry out more terrorist missions inside our borders?

There isn't a single thing that Putin wrote in those two paragraphs that isn't absolutely true. No, he's not a statesman. Yes, he is, as I previously alluded in this thread, a pig and a thug. But no, he is far from stupid, and sometimes, whether or not we want to admit it, Russia's interests are our own..........or, as they were in the day of MAD, they ought to be. I don't like Putin anymore than anybody else, but only a fool would discount 100% of what he says, just because we don't like him.

[Purplehood]

TAM, I completely agree with you.

And if anyone has any doubt that the "Freedom Fighters" of Syria do not want to replace one dictator with another, just watch their broadcasts/videos. They all feature a prominent portrait in a corner of whatever charismatic leader it is that the particular group is adulating.

That tells me all that I need to know.