It doesnt matter that a ceasefire isnt a penalty, Obamas airstrike isn´t one either. The point is that preventing death should be the top priority and not punishment.

So the real question is, how do me prevend more death from happening? That is a basis on which you can make good decisions.

Considering this, do you think punishment would help anything? Do you think Assad will stop fighting after a slap on his wrist? I saw a scene in a docu of Assad mobilizing the population. Kids and old man, Assad is desperate, a slap on the wrist will make him shrug and after that he will procede with fighting for his life and country. So there would have to be more punishment like a huge military operation, involving the killing of the mentioned Kids and old man. I dont see how punishment will protect people.

I would start with peace talks. If that doesnt work either leaving them alone ar as an more aggressive approach pressuring both sides into peace talks

The comparison between Libya and Syria in this respect does not make sense: for Libya there was a security council resolution, quite a different situation from Syria

Dude, when you claimrf earlier that 95% of Syrians support Assad, you had already kinda disqualified yourself from the discussion. Name-calling and citing unsourced local Russian commentary only makes it worse.

At this point I have serious doubt that this resolution is going to pass. I really have my doubts that Obama will do a serious (Oval Office or Joint Session) address to sway public opinion. I don't think he has the stones for it, I don't think he thinks he has the political capital for it, and I do think he is getting a psychological whipping at the G20 by other world leaders. I think he will take no action if Congress turns him down until and unless there are further chemical weapons used and even then I think he will just say I told you so.

I think the probabilities are greater than 50% that when Obama leaves office Assad will still be there and Iran will have tested a nuke.

House Republicans are going to buck Boehner, who is pretty much a lame duck at this point in time himself and as you see here Obama's base....well, he may no longer have a base.

President Obama’s liberal activist base is adamantly opposed to military strikes in Syria, according to a new survey the Progressive Change Campaign Committee released Wednesday.

PCCC says more than 57,000 of its activists weighed in, and 73 percent of them opposed the U.S. taking action in Syria. Just 18 percent supported strikes, and just 14 percent said the U.S. should go ahead unilaterally if it can’t find any allies.

Indeed, a majority of the activists don’t believe Mr. Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry are being honest when they lay out their justifications for taking military action.

Four out of five activists also said they believe U.S. action will lead to deeper involvement in the civil war.


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/...#ixzz2e3EarXKx
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

I guess this shows the power that Putin wields.

Here's my take.

We are helping the rebels by drawing this bomb / don't bomb choice out. Right now the Assad regime is busy moving all their stockpiles from fortified areas and bases to civilian structures. Civilian structures which the rebels might be better able to take.

Assad is probably also very uncomfortable in some spider hole somewhere, or at least moving around multiple times daily. This makes him a more vulnerable target for the rebels as well.

In the end we won't bomb unless Obama want's to prove he has a big johnson, which might also happen.

If Congress votes no, expect the facts on the ground to change shortly to argue more for military action. I know Im in the minority, but I think there's very little chance this doesnt end with some sort of action against Syria.

Acting after a no vote in some super limited capacity seems like the worst possible outcome. What a cluster****.

The main argument against helping is that the rebels have proven themselves to be every bit as violent, crazy, and dangerous as Assad. This isn't good guys vs. bad guys, it's crazies vs. crazies, intervening and helping anyone is not a winning play.

Heard on the news that the rebels made a video saying that if the US and others don't punish Assad then they will seek to "cross their own red line" and pursue the use chemical weapons against Assad.

With no air strike, you can expect more images like this horrendous one from Ebrin, Syria after the chemical attack. How many of these do you need to see before you do something?

Disagree. The worst possible outcome is we dont take action here and then end up deciding to get embroiled in something bigger and dumber down the road.

This spot absolutely sucks, I dont envy Obama one bit. Best play was probably to quickly lob in some missles and take the hit that would go with it, but that option sucked as well.

In my mind a very weak response was not significantly different than no response but I agree we should act.

Let's stop the murder of children by bombing populated urban centers! Yeah!

Father:

Funny, but I haven't heard a public statement by any ambassador or ruler of any "Arab country" pledging that they will "foot the bill" for an attack on Syria. Has the Saudi royal family offered to pay for this "limited war" with their oil revenues? If not the Saudi's, then which "Arab country" was John Kerry referring to? (I wonder if Kerry actually made such a statement - or was misquoted - since it would be a major diplomatic slip up to make a statement like that which turns out to be untrue.)

There's a bit of deja vu and history repeating in all this. Prior to commencement of the 2003 Iraq war, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld insisted that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would be over with in two weeks - that was all the time that would be needed for U.S. forces to depose Saddam Hussein and install a "democratic government" in Iraq. (Mr. Rumsfeld used the words "cake walk" to characterize how he thought an invasion of Iraq would play out.) After two weeks (or two months) American forces would be "out of there" and headed home. That was Don Rumsfeld's prediction.

Paul Wolfewitz, one of Rumsfeld's deputies, went a step further. Wolfewitz insisted that the cost of an invasion to American taxpayers would be "minimal" since most of the cost would be paid for with Iraqi oil revenues. (In other words, according to Mr. Wolfewitz, the Iraqi people would pay for our invasion of their country with their money!) I don't know precise numbers, but it seems that Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfewitz's estimates were only off by ten years and a trillion dollars respectively.

Grunching:

It's possible to be against action in Syria without cheering the deaths of civilians in a country just b/c they don't like us, you know.

The sad truth is you could post pictures like that from dozens of other countries. Where is your call to go to war with all these other countries you despicable human being?

I figure the best thing we could ever do from a humanitarian perspective is send the money we would spend on military operations and buy food, clothes, and shelter for the two million refugees who sought refuge in neighboring countries that can't provide for their own citizens to begin with.

Footage of Kerry's statement has been playing every few hours on CNN/FOX since he made it.

He said that "an offer was on the table", in response to a pointed question during a hearing.

It really doesn't matter in the least what is waiting in the wings in Syria. Why should it? We in fact do not know nor can we know for certain who will or what type of government will replace Assad should he fall. It would be nice if it were a democracy. We will try to influence that outcome. But because we don't know or can't be sure does not mean that we are not sure that we want Assad gone. Now!

"We don't care what happens to the brown people as long as we get to drop some bombs on them first"

According to press reports Assad is moving the military into civilian areas? Why do you think he is doing that? Because like me, better than me, Assad and his military commanders know what the U.S. military is capable of doing. My faith is not placed in the Government in terms of Obama alone. Obama has the U.S. military to consult with regarding target value. If the military targets are in "political epicenters" as you describe them and some how a bomb "accidentally" kills Assad the U.S. will just be able to claim he put himself in harms way. Assad knows this. He will get the message. Im pretty confident that if we Bomb him for using chemical weapons you won't hear of it happening again.

You had me until you said that in the end we won't bomb. We are going to bomb, no question.

Not me. It is probably better to bomb them if we have the proof Assad used chemical weapons. Assad, if they used chemical weapons, knew the consequences. If he did so in spite of knowing what would happen punishment has to happen.

The picture in post #1236 is from Erbin City, Syria (corrected spelling) a suburb of Damascus that staged anti-government protests during the summer.

That is not a rational statement. If he is facing defeat with no outs he not only will use chemical weapons again if he thinks it will possibly save him but might use them in vengeance. Did we not see rebels execute Syrian soldiers in the most brutal fashion?

It is a false premise that punitive strikes will preclude future use of these weapons. Might, might not.

Further, if we cause a sudden collapse of the regime, we might see BOTH use of these weapons as a last gasp but also seizure of chemical weapons stocks by rebels, maybe multiple groups of rebels and they could easily fall into the hands of jihadists. They may or may not have the capacity to use them but there is little doubt it would be very dangerous.

The only real argument for a strike would be to demonstrate to Iran that we will act if they do not back down on nuclear weapons and to demonstrate to North Korea that we would act if they used WMD.

Obama should have kept his mouth shut and remain suspected of weakness, now, if the resolution does not pass he will have tossed away a great deal of the our credibility in the "stick and carrot" game we are playing with Tehran.

To use one of his phrases, make no mistake, this is not about Syrian civilians. This is about an Iranian nuke. That's the whole ballgame in US Middle Eastern policy.

We can fade everything but an Iranian nuke. That's a game changer and a major destabilizer. That is a core national security interest.

I would support a resolution to bomb Iran to degrade their nuclear weapons program because that makes sense. Lobbing a few cruise missiles at Assad solves nothing. Assad is little more than an involuntary proxy for Iran.

Kill the snake by cutting off its head, not the tail.

Obama has pretty much blown any hope of deterring Iran by allowing himself to be trapped in an irrelevancy. If he goes ahead with the strike based on the powers of his office, in a limited manner, without asking for permission, he would have preserved our credibility.

Now however it turns out we look weak and weakness invites attack.

Israel also now must decide if they have to strike Iran, and Obama has refused them the newer bunker busters and refused them operational assistance. Obama is backing them into a corner and this is very dangerous.

What a schmuck.

I actually just made a better case for the proposed resolution than the administration has, without intending to.