Politics & Current Events
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Why no discussion of Syria?
I'm just curious why NO one here is posting on the crisis in Syria.
Re: Why no discussion of Syria?
Ditto to all of this. Some of the videos coming out of Syria are tragic enough, I can't imagine the horror of chemical weapons. When I heard that they loaded up the chemical weapons I couldn't do anything but shake my head.
Even if Bashar Al-Assad doesn't care about the people, hopefully he's reasonable enough to realize that crossing that line is a big fcuking deal and would have repercussions for his long-term outcome.
I'm really interested in what the repercussions are. If the US went in "preemptively" when we were convinced there were WMD in Iraq, wonder if that is a possibility KNOWING without a doubt it seems, that the weapons are not only there, but being readied.
The entire instability in that region seems to be getting worse instead of better. It just seems NOTHING is gonna "fix" it. I know it is very complex it just seems unavoidable to become entangled in more wars.
I don't think anyone knows the exact outcome of this conflict. The US is simply less intervening than it was in the early 2000's and let's face it, American's don't care as much when it's not one of their own. I think Syria realizes this.
But even if the US doesn't take any action, it's much harder for Al-Assar to keep global allies or seek asylum if he commits an atrocity. The way I see it, if he goes to far then his long-term political and physical safety are put in jeopardy.
I support protecting as many lives as possible. But, with the two wars we've been engaged in for so long and the lack of progress made, both in finding what we wanted to find and also in successfully transitioning over new governments, I think U.S. involvement would be another effort in vain, that would just tick the extremist Islamic world off at the U.S even more and cost more U.S. lives.
I don't necessarily want an isolationist approach either, but I don't think we as a nation are in any shape to extend ourselves any more.
Wars these days aren't going to have ends and treaties like WWI and WWII. I think these terrorism wars are just going to continue. I am somewhat resigned to this fact. They are like the game "Whack a Mole." You bop one down and another pops up a second later.
Perhaps the only thing the U.S. can or should do is to prevent these wars from spilling over into our lands and into the lands of our allies.
I don't know....life is so puzzling.
Syria is complicated.
I was not a fan of the decision to get involved in Libya but- I think it was handled very well from the US end once we did. Primarily air support, very limited in scale, no follow-up attempt to really dictate the outcome.
It's very important that (the US, the UN, whoever) let the people themselves be the instruments of change, rather than jump right in, oust al-Assad, and try to force the change on another country (didn't work so well in Iraq). That has worked out decently in Libya, recent events notwithstanding, I think a little better in Tunisia... obviously Egypt is now seeing popular revolt #2, which I think is a great sign, honestly, that the people were paying attention and more than ready to call Morsi on his BS.
With Syria though, you have 2 things: proximity to and antipathy towards Israel, and ties with Iran. At a time when the US might finally be getting somewhere on the sanctions thing, it won't serve that conflict well to piss off Iran by getting directly involved in Iraq-like fashion in Syria (No, I'm not saying they're going to nuke somebody, but they pretty much just have to say 'boo' and Netanyahu starts threatening WWIII, so I don't think that's in anyone's interests).
On the Israeli front... Egypt is already chaotic; their two other primary regional allies border Syria (Jordan and Turkey). There is already protesting going on against the king in Jordan and ties with Turkey have been strained since the the Gaza flotilla incident. I would guess that from the standpoint of keeping Israel stable and secure, we don't much like the idea of invading Syria, pissing off Iran, and risking spillover of unrest and refugees into Jordan and Turkey, not to mention the ensuing outrage that will probably fire up elements of the population of many countries if we get involved in yet another war in this region.
So yeah... Syria is complicated.
There hasn't been much discussion of ANYTHING around here since the election.
The difference is that in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the people of Iraq and Afghanistan did not want us there. The people of Syria are literally begging for the world to intervene and stop the slaughter. Over 40,000 civilians have been murdered. FORTY THOUSAND PEOPLE.
This is not a 'terrorism war' - this is a repressive dictatorship trying to maintain power by extreme violence. It is a massacre. They are torturing children as young as eight years old, committing horrific atrocities. Chemical weapons is just the next step, but atrocities have already been committed.
If anything, the Islamic world will hate and condemn the US for *not* intervening, for standing by and doing nothing while tens of thousands of innocent people were murdered. And frankly, they have a good point when the attitude of most Americans is "huh...well, it doesn't really affect me, so as long as my government keeps it from affecting me or Israelis, then eh...whatever. It's not *my* children being tortured to punish their parents."
Apparently the US is sending troops and a couple of Patriot missile batteries to the Turkish border with Syria. So there's that.
Actively helping... the opposition? Or the regime? I'm assuming you mean the opposition. In which case- what difference does that really make in the long run? It's not like they'll leave if we come in, in which case I'd imagine there's a heightened risk for further protracting the conflict a la Iraq. At best we don't really have anything to do with each other but even in that case- we have to leave, they don't. They'd still be in a position to at least influence the direction of the country. A la 1980s Afghanistan.