Do you now support military action against Syria's government?

[J Ed]

No, I do not support military action because I know that genocide will follow the collapse of the Syrian state.

 

[Pickman's model]

No, I do not support military action because I know that genocide will follow the collapse of the Syrian state.

it's not so much that as the conflict which is now spilling over into lebanon will then spill over both in the region and beyond rather further as people like russia, the us, iran, uk, turkey, the zionist entity etc etc jump in and the bodycount in syria to date will be the least of anyone's worries.

 

[JimW]

Anyone have access to this? Was trying to find something reasonably comprehensive on the consequences of the Libya intervention and this seems to be a recent case made that it made things much worse, but only abstract available:

NATO's 2011 humanitarian military intervention in Libya has been hailed as a model for implementing the emerging norm of the responsibility to protect (R2P), on grounds that it prevented an impending bloodbath in Benghazi and facilitated the ouster of Libya's oppressive ruler, Muammar al-Qaddafi, who had targeted peaceful civilian protesters. Before the international community embraces such conclusions, however, a more rigorous assessment of the net humanitarian impact of NATO intervention in Libya is warranted. The conventional narrative is flawed in its portrayal of both the nature of the violence in Libya prior to the intervention and NATO's eventual objective of regime change. An examination of the course of violence in Libya before and after NATO's action shows that the intervention backfired. The intervention extended the war's duration about sixfold; increased its death toll approximately seven to ten times; and exacerbated human rights abuses, humanitarian suffering, Islamic radicalism, and weapons proliferation in Libya and its neighbors.

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/ISEC_a_00126

Podcast of him making the case here which I've not listened to yet: http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/intervention-libya-humanitarian-success-audio

Thought it would be relevant

 

[Kid_Eternity]

No. This isn't Libya or Iraq. This is a far more unstable and dangerous conflict which could all to easily spread like wildfire to include Turkey, Iran and Israel.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

By whom, to what degree, and with what objectives? No-one would complain about, say, the limited enforcement of specific no-fly zones, or the interception of missiles. Pointless poll without more detail.

No one? Really? A nofly isn't going to work.

 

[Frances Lengel]

What happened last week?

 

[twentythreedom]

I'm sure Asma Assad is still doing nice things for suffering children though, we should acknowledge her selflessness at least

 

[Delroy Booth]

Let's check up on how Iraq's getting on since we intervened there before we start talking about who's next.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23837715

Here's an interesting fact buried at the bottom of the article.

Sectarian attacks have killed more than 4,000 people this year, with Baghdad province the worst affected.
The violence has raised fears of a return to the worst of the ethnic and political bloodletting up to 2008.

 

[JHE]

No. This isn't Libya or Iraq. This is a far more unstable and dangerous conflict which could all to easily spread like wildfire to include Turkey, Iran and Israel.

Do you regard either the invasion of Iraq or the air war to ensure victory for the anti-Gaddafi forces in Libya as political success stories? In both cases, the governments were ousted, so you could claim both were initially military successes, but beyond that... ?

 

[JHE]

I'm sure Asma Assad is still doing nice things for suffering children though, we should acknowledge her selflessness at least

I don't really understand why people on this thread are interested in her. She's not the Baathist dictator. Her husband is.

Perhaps she interests people because of the combination of glamour and tyranny, a good-looking westernised woman married to a (tall, handsome) brute. Politically, her error is just dollypartonism, isn't it? Stand by your man...

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Do you regard either the invasion of Iraq or the air war to ensure victory for the anti-Gaddafi forces in Libya as political success stories? In both cases, the governments were ousted, so you could claim both were initially military successes, but beyond that... ?

In that they didn't risk inflaming the whole Middle East. Libya has caused a ton of knock on problems in the Sahel but nobody really gives a shit if Africans are blown up.

 

[twentythreedom]

I don't really understand why people on this thread are interested in her. She's not the Baathist dictator. He husband is.

Perhaps she interests people because of the combination of glamour and tyranny, a good-looking westernised woman married to a (tall, handsome) brute. Politically, her error is just dollypartonism, isn't it? Stand by your man...

Nah, she's nasty. Going on shopping sprees in Paris, trying to fool people with philanthropic acts, photo shoots cuddling children orphaned by her husband etc. She's particularly cynical and distasteful, and arrogant and deluded enough to think people will be fooled (although some are). Vile.

 

[Frumious B.]

handsome

You what?

Freaky neck. Reminds me of Beaker.

 

[Sprocket.]

Military intervention would only result in more innocent civilians dying as in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
A negotiated peace will only come about if Russia, China and Iran and US, Israel and various sabre rattling western states stop and think of those who are dying in a bloody civil war that will be the end of Syria as much as the civil war that decimated Lebanon.
But no, the UN security council will just waste time and let the unruly kids with the biggest sticks shout at each other while children burn to death.
I fucking despair, but I cannot expect any more violence to resolve the war in Syria. Sadly it could be a sink hole that drags the world down.
Do we need another revelation on the road to Damascus?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Simple question - in light of what has happened in the past week, do you think that military action is now required?

If so, why?

If not, why?

Too simple. So simple that it's meaningless.

But assuming the assumptions you are assuming, absolutely not.

 

[norwood]

No proof that assad fired the chemicals.No reason for assad to do this because he is in clearly winning.Pure coincidence that this happened almost a year to the day since obamas redline warning this happens?

Obama and cameron have been pushing for this for a while all they needed was a serious excuse.Similar to iraq they are not going to let a stupid thing like proof hold them back.It will come out who actually fired the weapons but by then like iraq it wont matter.Over 10 years since 9/11 and there still backing terrorists.

 

[TomUS]

Over 10 years since 9/11 and there still backing terrorists.

No they're not. They're opposing Assad.

 

[norwood]

Opposing assad in favour of fundamentalist islam.Remind me why the usa and its allies have been involved in wars the last 12 years?????Wasn,t it a war on terrorism and extremist islamics.
Obama and cameron are in favour and backing the muslim brotherhood who are islamic extremists in both syria and eygpt.Sending weapons through 3rd partys.Its a damm disgrace to be backing these madmen.Most syrians dont like assad but the alternative is to hand the country over to extreme islamic fundamentalists and sharia law.

 

[brogdale]

No they're not. They're opposing Assad.

...and his family, the Ba'athist regime, the Alawite and Christian minorities in Syria, Hezbollah, Iran, Shia islam including Iraqi Shias and, of course, Russia (& China). In doing so the US would aligning with Sunni islam of the majority, the Muslim Brotherhood, Kurdish nationaists, the FSA including Salafists and jihadists like the al-Nusra Front (affiliated to AQ and deemed terrorists by the US), regional supporters including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey.

Sounds like a few US crusie loosed off is just what is needed to solve this situation.

 

[Pickman's model]

Nah, she's nasty. Going on shopping sprees in Paris, trying to fool people with philanthropic acts, photo shoots cuddling children orphaned by her husband etc. She's particularly cynical and distasteful, and arrogant and deluded enough to think people will be fooled (although some are). Vile.

I'm sure samantha cameron does much of that now and her husband may well cause children to br orphaned here, it's not like he has to kill syrians for govt policy to kill people.

 

[cyprusclean]

Nah, she's nasty. Going on shopping sprees in Paris, trying to fool people with philanthropic acts, photo shoots cuddling children orphaned by her husband etc. She's particularly cynical and distasteful, and arrogant and deluded enough to think people will be fooled (although some are). Vile.

I thought she was a nice English girl from Acton, London uni educated.

 

[Pickman's model]

You're something of a snob

I thought she was a nice English girl from Acton, London uni educated.

 

[cyprusclean]

You're something of a snob

How could I be? I'm not a liberal elite.

What did Sam Cam have to do with it, BTW?

 

[Pickman's model]

How could I be? I'm not a liberal elite.

What did Sam Cam have to do with it, BTW?

Hyacinth bucket's not a liberal elite. You're making it worse by saying 'i can't be a snob'

 

[Diamond]

I don't think those numbers are accurate at all Cyprusclean to be honest. The idea there's a 50,000 strong Free Syrian Army is laughable, all the recent reports (at least since the beginning of this year) that I've seen have said Jabhat al-nusrah is the dominant rebel group, and the numer of troops directly under the control of the FSA less than 10% of the overall number of rebels. the numbers fighting for Al-Qaeda have been put at 30,000 or so. I suspect your data is either out of date or wishful thinking.

Forgive me for not searching out any links to back that up but there's ample links in the Syria thread which say this, so I suggest you look there.

The idea that the Free Syrian Army is non-Islamist is also untrue - many of these Islamist militia's switch their allegiences from FSA to Al-Nusrah depending on who's got the best weapons and the most money. This notion of there being a clear distinction between the secular good guys and the Islamist bad guys is nothing more than wishful thinking put about the neo-conversative american hawks like John McCain. The truth is much more complicated and uncomfortable than the neo-cons say. The idea that the secular non-Islamist Free Syrian Army outnumbers the Islamists 10-1 in Syria is laughable.

Ha!

Sorry for not supporting my assertions with any sources. You'll have to find your own. I think they're *waves waftily* somewhere over there.

Your points may well be valid but do you really expect anyone to take you remotely seriously with such an outrageously lazy approach?

 

[cyprusclean]

Hyacinth bucket's not a liberal elite. You're making it worse by saying 'i can't be a snob'

You're way out of date with that one.

Since when have you done character analysis on anonymous posters on an internet talkboard?

Like it matters?

 

[Diamond]

The strongest argument, to my mind, in favour of military action in response to the Syrian gas attack is that a failure to meet it with consequences fatally undermines the whole prohibition against the use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

The Iraq situation was different in one crucial respect - there the issue was one of possession, here it is of use.

 

[elbows]

Anyone have access to this? Was trying to find something reasonably comprehensive on the consequences of the Libya intervention and this seems to be a recent case made that it made things much worse, but only abstract available:




http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/ISEC_a_00126

Podcast of him making the case here which I've not listened to yet: http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/intervention-libya-humanitarian-success-audio

Thought it would be relevant

I don't have access to it but I did listen to the podcast. I also compared his version of events to the first 100+ pages of the u75 thread about Libya. He does a good job of exposing the various lies about the scale of Gaddafis slaughter and a variety of other fake details from the pre nato bombing phase of the Libyan uprising. Other aspects of his talk will come across as simple common sense to those well aware of what 'humanitarian intervention' usually means in practice, e.g. regime change. The main flaw in his stance is that in order to make a clear case, he is excessively charitable about what Gaddafi's regime did to peaceful protesters in Tripoli, and what they may have done had they retaken Benghazi. Some of this is understandable given the extent of the anti-Gaddafi demonisation that was painted in the run-up to nato intervention, but he err's too much in the other direction and his guesstimate of how many people would have died in Benghazi without intervention seemed rather absurd to me.

Many of the details do not translate directly to Syria because it does seem rather likely that the rebellion in Libya would quickly have been crushed without nato bombing. And the other forms of intervention that happened in Libya in parallel with the bombing, such as providing various degrees of support to rebel groups, have already been happening in Syria to various degrees for rather a long time.

 

[albionism]

It just gets murkier and murkier.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...ve-gas-not-assads-regi/#.UhsnsY9AAkQ.facebook

 

[elbows]

It just gets murkier and murkier.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...ve-gas-not-assads-regi/#.UhsnsY9AAkQ.facebook

Since the months where rebel use of chemical agents received some credible attention, there appears to have been a concerted effort to airbrush this aspect from the narrative used by the likes of the UK and USA. They barely acknowledged it at the time, and they certainly aren't going to mention it now.