You should appreciate this:

Donald Trump Will Do Anything To Avoid Prosecution–And John Bolton Will Help

Why are you escalating?
What are you gaining from escalating?
To what extent are you willing to escalate?

1. To try to deter future usage of chemical weapons
2. Trying to increase the likelihood of said deterrent
3. The assassination/death of Assad

This is not the hill you want to die on.

https://twitter.com/missydepino/stat...39713016094721

why are you conflating attacking assad with bombing syrians?

Proud day for Americans. We have the bestest military and #1*

How many civilians died in the bombings?

How many is an acceptable number?

Lol I wonder what the reaction of the avwals and raras of the thread is when they see the title change. A dry chuckle or seething cognitive dissonance rage?

0

I know you are being obtuse on purpose but Russia is not an ally to the United States, like someone like Israel might be. In fact in most people’s minds they are an enemy and are certainly one of only two allies in the whole world of Syria.

So the objective can both be not wanting to tip off Syria and try not to hit Russians.

Hmm, I thought Rand Paul dropped out late 2015.

Shut that meme down. Nothing else is touching that.

Pretty good.

There have been at least four years of confirmed chemical weapons attacks.
How many bombs and money has the US spent since?
Removing Assad won't be a miracle fix the same way removing Saddam wasn't in Iraq.

Woody, Syria was supposed to destroy all their chemical weapons over 3 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destru...emical_weapons

The latest attack wasn't, in and of itself, immoral. Trying to prevent the use of chemical weapons, especially on civilians, is a just cause. The issue is, Trump has shown zero regard for Syrian civilians, or we'd be doing our parts with Syrian refugees and would be doing something to protect them from conventional weapons.

That's why this is a Wag the Dog attack. It's not the premise that makes it such, it's the timing.

As for fighting Assad in general, it would be a massive blunder. For starters, to the extent that Russia and Iran are willing to keep supporting him, we can't topple him without escalating this past a proxy war.

But even if we could, there are like six or seven sides in this civil war. Even the two most good ones (FSA and SDF) are sometimes fighting each other, while also fighting Assad and ISIS. We support both, but only against ISIS. There's also Assad and ISIS, of course, as well as al Nusra and al Qaeda. There are some other non-Jihadist Islamic forces.

But the problem with fighting Assad is that it's unlikely that either the FSA or SDF can control the territory firmly enough if they win to keep jihadists from seizing territory. So, it would end up a lot like Iraq. Either we occupy the area indefinitely (which makes us even more hated) or jihadists gain control of some territory. Neither outcome is good.

Ideally we would find a way to keep Assad from killing civilians, but engaging him directly in any sustained way would be disastrous to US interests.

As a result, our strikes only serve to prolong a war with a seemingly inevitable outcome that has already killed more than half a million people.

The only way we should do anything more than fight ISIS there and support anyone in engaging ISIS is if there was a massive coalition through NATO or the UN, and there's not. I'd be fine calling for such, but I doubt the US public would support it.

Then we should do more.


And when I say "we" I mean the entire rest of the world.

@aofrantic

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...syria-54367351

Syria used chemical weapons in 2013, but it was not continuous. Obama and the UN successfully pressured Assad to stop using them for a couple of years. Assad then tested the waters in 2015 with chlorine gas attacks. Facing no serious consequences, the regime escalated to more lethal nerve agents. You can debate the merits of making this a red line issue (as others have noted, they're killing a ****load more civilians with conventional weapons), but if you do draw the line there, bombing them when they cross it is clearly necessary and probably sufficient to enforce it.

I don't know if Rand Paul is actually against war or if so why, but if he really is that's a huge plus for him and not a slander on people who are against war.

The problem with engaging Assad is that defeating him may not end the war OR make us safer at home. Possibly the contrary. UNLESS the UN or NATO is prepared to join in to both defeat him and keep the peace afterward.

The US would be morally right to push for that, but the world does not seem ready, nor could Trump likely build that coalition.

See my long post above for more details. The complexity makes this hard to discuss in normal length posts.

My somewhat limited and somewhat biased understanding is that the FSA is like half Al Queda/Nusra itself and that the SDF can and does govern wherever Turkey is not attacking them.

I get that, my point is that UN sanctions, resolutions and limited air strikes hasn't worked and won't work.

We should allow for the possibility that even if we are prepared and willing to do whatever it takes, we may not be able to defeat Assad and keep the peace.