Should Nobel Peace Prize Winner Obama Unleash The Dogs Of War Upon Syria?

Secretary of State John Kerry indicated that the US will not wait for a finding from UN investigators on whether or not Assad used chemical weapons against rebels in Syria. Kerry said the investigators will likely not issue a finding on who was responsible for the chemical attack.

However, Obama has sent four warships loaded with Tomahawk missiles into the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Do you think Obama should attack Syria? If not, what other options should Obama take?

 

It's too bad you can't learn to title your threads with somewhat less dripping partisan diarrhea.

 

During one of the most serious events so far during the Obama presidency and this is all you have to say? Come on, you must certainly have an opinion. Please share it with us.

 

My opinion? You're a loser. Let me know if you want another.

 

I would like to hear your opinion on the situation in Syria and the actions our president should take.

 

Would anyone else like to chime in?

 

As the worlds foremost police force here we go into another domestic dispute. They may hate each other now, but once we're there, they will hate us most of all and eventually it will be all our fault. Cruise missile diplomacy as opposed to outright intervention, is also a losing strategy, with every dead and maimed civilian within 100 miles of a missile strike being our fault. Remember the multi-national intervention in the Lebanese civil war back in the 80's. Every group that intervened was attacked except the Italians. Instead of going in with just an army, they set up hospitals and provided relief services. Maybe that's a better approach but doesn't make headline news. China's itching to be the next world dominate superpower, let them deal with it, maybe they will get smart and figure out that "superpower" is a job not worth having. In geo-politics as in life, sh*t flows down hill and blame will flow up hill no matter what you do.

 

****ditto. But you know we'll do it anyway because we can. We never learn.

 

This will be something new. A middle east enemy that actually has WMD's.

 

fog-of-war brings up a good point....seems Syria is putting Saddam's WMD's to use

 

Yeah, that's the latest Bush Era lie you are going with? Figures. Any proof or is your opinion all we need? Right....

 

As if warped by some giant conspiratorial black hole, any discussion of Syria’s chemical and biological weapons inevitably bends back in time and space to Iraq in 2003. Remember the meme that Saddam Hussein transferred his deadly weapons to Syria ahead of the U.S. invasion? If not, you can bet you’ll hear it if Bashar Assad follows through on his threat to use chemical weapons against a foreign incursion. But this retroactive justification for the Iraq invasion will be just as bogus as every other time it’s come up in the last 10 years.
I’ve already debunked one of the rumors about Iraq’s WMD. I’m not buying this one. Here’s why.
First: Think about it for a second. Strategically and militarily, it made no sense for Saddam to transfer his weapons of mass destruction to Syria. Saddam worked on acquiring WMD for a reason: to stave off an invasion and hold on to power.
Just listen to a defeated Saddam for a second. In a post-invasion interview, Saddam admitted that he had been bluffing about his WMD. This is actually case-closed for the conspiracy theories about his weapons transfers.
But for a moment, let’s suppose that Saddam circumvented the most intrusive sanction regime the world has ever known and rebuilt his WMD programs after inspectors (and Israeli jets) destroyed them. His reasoning would have been deterrence — as Thomas Schelling put it, Saddam would have given his enemies a “threat that leaves something to chance.” That’s why the Assad regime threatens on and off to use WMD: It keeps the foreign hordes at bay. So why, with U.S. massing forces on his border, would Saddam give up the one thing he had to raise the cost of invading to the Americans?

Second, let’s say that Saddam wasn’t so concerned about the Americans — a miscalculation that Saddam seems to have made. That’s actually not a rationale for transferring weapons to Syria. Just like in 1991, he faced the collapse of his regime. Except back then, he slaughtered jubilant Shiites and used chemical weapons on the Kurds. Why, in 2003, would Saddam give up the worst threat he could make against his people?
Third, the Iraqi Ba’athists and Syrian Ba’athists are far from allies. Syria’s Allawites are minority Shiites and proxies to Iraq’s arch-enemy Iran. They fought on the allied side against Iraq during Desert Storm. Why would Saddam turn over his deadliest weapons Iran’s best friend in the region? Remember: Saddam says he made his WMD threats to cower the Iranians.
Fourth, from a U.S. military perspective, the transfer would have been impossible to hide. I worked at U.S. Central Command’s Mideast headquarters before, during, and after the invasion, which gave me a good understanding of what was going on at the time. The region was blanketed by U.S. military assets. Operation Enduring Freedom was in full swing in Afghanistan, and Operations Northern and Southern Watch were still in place over Iraq. If something moved — like, say a convoy of Winnebagos of Death heading for Syria — it could be detected and killed.
For example, as the clock ticked down on President Bush’s deadline for Saddam and his sons to leave Iraq, the dictator was detected at Dora Farms. The U.S. was able to scramble F-117s over Baghdad and bomb Dora Farms with impunity as the clock ran out. If Saddam were moving his allegedly massive stockpile to Syria, it would have been impossible to hide from the United States. A convoy of illicit material moving through the Western desert would have been a perfect target: the U.S. could strike it from the air; and then insert teams on the ground to take forensic samples of the material.
Do you think anyone in the administration or the military would have turned down the chance to justify the war before it started? Further, does anyone honestly think that if the Bush administration had good evidence that the material was somehow making its way into Syria, it wouldn’t have acted? Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was threatening Assad almost as soon as U.S. troops reached Baghdad.
As tragic as the decision to invade Iraq was, I’m not making any apologia for Saddam’s brutal regime. Had there been no invasion and the sanctions somehow lifted, I believe he would have been back in the WMD game quickly. He retained a cadre of scientists, machinery and other latent capability to do it. But in this case, sanctions, inspections and containment worked.
Not that you’ll hear that if Assad uses his weapons. You’ll hear TV talking heads mumbling about how we now know where Saddam’s WMD went, amplified by ignorant blog posts and tweets. Even Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential nominee, has flirted with this long-debunked theory. The truth is that Syria has had chemical weapons programs for decades. Keep that in mind if Assad actually puts it to use.

 

...well, if Saddam & Assad say so...

 

And all of the other logic too..... You conspiracy nuts never let go of your pet projects do you?
It is well known that Syria has had stockpiles of chemical weapons for decades but suddenly they came from Iraq because it fits the crazy Right-wing narrative. Geesh!

 

Would it do any good or change anything to intervene? I have serious doubts.

 

WAIT!!! We are bring the troops home! We started in Afghanistan, then Iraqi, now Syria, next will be Israel because they haven't dealt with their little Palestinian issue. We'll do a little nation building and teach them all to get along with rousing choruses of "Kumbaya". Then Egypt (do you need to ask why), Uganda, Libya, don't forget Gibraltar because "rock" is a drug word. The Marines can do some island hoping on the Canary and Bermuda Islands with a final drive into South Carolina just because it's there. Ah, I feel better now..........

 

Only nine percent of the respondents in a recent poll support intervention in Syria. Some of the low-information respondents didn't even know that the US claimed in June that Syria had already used chemical weapons.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...intervention-even-less-popular-than-congress/

 

I guess Biden is going to impeach Obama.

 

Well said Joe! Only you're a politician well steeped in the tradition of situational ethics and I can't believe a word you say. I say it's time to throw out our best and brightest. I want stupid people in charge. What are some of the shinny examples they have brought to bear, housing projects, mortgage derivative swaps, nation building, and all children left behind to name a few. I want people a little less clever. Pave the roads, secure the border, and leave us alone; what's so hard about that? PS: stupid people can't find Syria on a map, ignorance can be bliss.

 

I will say what I said when the Lybian question was raised, let the Arabs deal with it themselfs. Turkey has troops massed on the border already due to attacks from within Syria.