The tar baby at home
So, it seems that Syria is becoming a tar baby here at home in the US for some politicians. John McCain heard from his constituents in Arizona last night who are pretty upset that he’s so hawkish on military action in Syria. Wrote CNN;
McCain has long advocated a more muscular American approach toward Syria, calling for a plan to oust President Bashar al-Assad from power. But on Thursday many people who showed up to a town hall in Phoenix said that getting more involved in the civil war would lead to unintended consequences.
“We didn’t send you to make war for us. We sent you to stop the war,” one man said to applause.
The real enemy that six presidents have refused to deal with, Iran, has become a wild card in the discussion since they will more than likely target US embassies and our presence in countless countries around the world. The Wall Street Journal reports that some threats have already been uncovered;
The U.S. has intercepted an order from Iran to militants in Iraq to attack the U.S. Embassy and other American interests in Baghdad in the event of a strike on Syria, officials said, amid an expanding array of reprisal threats across the region.
Military officials have been trying to predict the range of possible responses from Syria, Iran and their allies. U.S. officials said they are on alert for Iran’s fleet of small, fast boats in the Persian Gulf, where American warships are positioned. U.S. officials also fear Hezbollah could attack the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.
Russia has moved war ships in to the Mediterranean according to AFP;
The SSV-201 intelligence ship Priazovye, accompanied by the two landing ships Minsk and Novocherkassk passed through the Bosphorus known as the Istanbul strait that separates Asia from Europe, an AFP photographer reported.
The Priazovye on Sunday started its voyage from its home port of Sevastopol in Ukraine “to the appointed region of military service in the eastern Mediterranean”, a military official told the Interfax news agency.
Russia, a key ally of Damascus, has kept a constant presence of around four warships in the eastern Mediterranean in the Syrian crisis, rotating them every few months.
It also has a naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus whose origins date back to Moscow’s close relationship with Damascus under the Soviet Union.
Unconfirmed sources report that China is moving ships into the Mediterranean as well.
According to the Russian news outlet Telegrafist.org, the People’s Liberation Army dispatched the Jinggangshan amphibious dock landing ship and the vessel was seen passing through the Red Sea towards the Suez Canal, the waterway in Egypt that leads to the Mediterranean Sea and waters off the coast of Israel, Lebanon and Syria.
According to the report, the ship has not been sent to engage in any aggressive actions but is merely there to “observe” the actions of Russian and US warships. However, the Jinggangshan is equipped for combat and was utilized as part of a “show of force” in maneuvers aimed at defending the South China Sea earlier this year.
Putin and Obama met yesterday – their meeting lasted 15 seconds. Hardly seems enough time to resolve the myriad issues that face the two figureheads of their countries. From the Associated Press;
With tensions mounting over issues including Syria, National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, and human rights, Obama and Putin did not plan to hold a formal bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 gathering. A formal greeting outside St. Petersburg’s Constantine Palace was their only planned one-on-one public appearance.
Parsing the body language between Obama and Putin has become something of a geopolitical parlor game every time the two leaders meet. But there wasn’t much to work with this time: Their exchange lasted 15 seconds.
On the cost of the war, Joe Bite Me hinted yesterday that US military action would be funded by the Gulf States, which is a nice thought, except that it sort of makes our troops the mercenaries of the rich Arabs who get to outsource their war fighting. The Christian Science Monitor reports that the wording of the Senate resolution for Syria, although it forbids the use of US “boots on the ground”, it really doesn’t;
“It might appear to a casual reader to be some significant prohibitions – preventing combat forces,” says retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, the former commander of US forces in Afghanistan. “We define ‘combat’ in lots of different ways.”
Without being “combat” forces, US troops could still be brought in for peacekeeping, search and rescue, and to secure chemical weapons plants should the need arise, adds Mr. Barno, who is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank in Washington.
“Despite the fact that the ban on combat troops looks pretty severe and restrictive,” he adds, “it’s not.”
Still, no one has articulated why we need to involve ourselves in a civil war beyond the appearance of chemical weapons in the conflict. No one has told me why it’s a national security issue that requires American lives to be at risk and no one has provided any real proof that it was Assad’s forces who used chemical weapons against the Syrian rebels and not the al Qaeda manipulators who used the weapons on their own people to make it appear as if Assad had used the weapons. The Obama Administration has dismissed the importance of the findings of the UN inspection team before they’ve even concluded sifting through the research they collected on the ground in Syria.
So why the rush to war?
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War
Oh, and for the record, ambulance driver does not necessarily a combat veteran make. Wounded, yes–but IIRC, he never himself fired a shot in anger, now did he?
@50 the weapons could have come from many different sources, the Russians, Iran,China,Hezbollah insert any radical group.. What sense would it make for Saddam to send his chemical weapons to Syria? You have zero evidence to show that occured.. Just because Hannity and Karl Rove say something doesn’t make it factual.
Hemmingway did not include typos and did include appropriate punctuation. What you said makes no sense.
No one hear thinks that war is great and should be engaged in willy-nilly. Unfortunately, sometimes war is necessary. Thus, whether war is the appropriate answer is highly dependent on the question. No one here is in a rush to engage in anything in Syria and are asking appropriate questions (in a somewhat inappropriate form, but if you don’t like that, go elsewhere). If you have something constructive to add, feel free. If not, take the opportunity to not show your ignorance and keep your mouth shut.
As to evidence that Saddam sent chemical weapons to Syria, what do you think was in those trucks going to Syria immediately before the invasion? Where do you think his “scientists” went? The actual chemicals sent to Syria are likely to degraded to be “the chemicals” used in Syria, but precursors and the know-how is a different story.
And yes Hemingway did drink the shotgun mouthwash but great writers are always a little eccentric.. I doubt you ever fired a shot in anger and I doubt you ever wrote a literary masterpiece.. And your shots at the Hulkster are out of line, he is way better off with out that skank of an ex wife of his.
So, the Resident-in-Chief is willing to start World War Three by killing Syrians as punishment for Syrians killing Syrians when Syrians were killing Syrians for at least a year before the Resident-in-Chief took notice.
As long as we have conclusive evidence that the Syrians were using chemical weapons that is supported by the intelligence services of other countries… oh, wait, the only people who are making that claim are the Al Qaeda backed Syrian Rebels… whom we are going to help.
@53 Until you get a CIB spare me your lectures on war, the only thing you know about it is what you hear on the news and what people like me tell you.
Well, using your logic there, until you have (fill in the blank with any of the assorted experiences of each of the posters here) spare us your lectures on war. Or anything else.
Meanwhile, is Hemmingway for or against our intervention in Syria?
What a dick. You think that because, as you say, one of the greatest authors in the history of the world” said something, that it is to be genuflected to and not treated as idiocy? I won’t even bother to look it up to see whether he said it (or wrote it) and, if he did, what the context was. The idiocy of the statement you provided, for your edification, asshole, is that war in defense of one’s nation, like deadly force in defense of oneself, is both legally and morally just. To hold otherwise is to endorse suicide–which old Ernie unquestionably did endorse.
I’m the author of comment 58.
OK, so the hulkababbler thinks there were no chemical weapons in Iraq. If that is the case, then why did Saddam Hussein brag that he had SCUD missiles loaded with nerve gas and other chemical agents when he invaded Kuwait and during the Gulf War? That was a big deal. It was the reason for going into Iraq during the Gulf War in the first place, not just to drive his Imperial Guard troops back into Iraq and out of Kuwait. All those incoming SCUDS that were blown apart midair by Patriot missiles were, according to Saddam Hussein, loaded with chemical agents. So if they weren’t in Iraq, where was he getting them, smartass? Who sold them to him? Was it Bigfoot? And if the SCUDS weren’t loaded with chemical agents, then why are so many Gulf War vets reporting something called Gulf War syndrome? And don’t say it was because of the oil well fires that Saddam Hussein’s troops started on their retreat. The people who got the most exposure were the guys who put those fires out. Oh, wait – I’ll bet you think Agent Orange, a defoliant which is dioxin-based and causes birth defects, has nothing to do with Vietnam in-country vets developing long-term side effects like higher than average cancer rates and having children with higher than average birth defects like spina bifida? And if Agent Orange exposure is baloney, then why do I get regular notices from the VA about it? Answer those questions, buttface, or shut it. See, I got to watch all that stuff on C-SPAN, which was kind enough to run live TV from the Gulf War 24 hours a day until it was over. It made me into a news junkie. I saw the night vision videos from Baghdad that someone sneaked out, where the locals were shooting anti-aircraft artillery at target they couldn’t see. The landings and takeoffs of fighter-bombers were live as were the takeoffs of the big B-2 bombers on their way to Baghdad. The ‘shock and awe’ bombing was live on TV, as was a road trip… Read more »
@52–What sense would it make for Saddam to send his chemical weapons to Syria?
You **DO** understand that back in 2003, both Syria and Iraq were Ba’athist, correct? Political allies, shit like that?
Hey Asshole, you like Papa quotes? Here’s some:
“You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself.” Ernest Hemingway
“Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.” Ernest Hemingway
“For a war to be just three conditions are necessary – public authority, just cause, right motive.”
Sparky. . . that may not be true. It seems at one point he um commandeered a company from 2 ID in WWII, and actually commanded it in the middle of a murthering great battle despite having no formal rank.
@56–RICHTER!!! Izzat you, fuck-knuckle?
@56
You didn’t need to come here and show your ass to everybody just to prove you have one….
Doc–it was a Resistance company, IIRC, and he had no authority to do so, and got in the deep dark shits over it. Only his name and his claim he was only “advising” kept him out of jail or worse.
IVAW = Losers.
And again, dickamaniac–MOS/Unit/when you were in Iraq.
Simple questions, really.
@56 – A Combat Infantry Badge?
I think you could sink under the weight of the CIBs and CABs most of these people have, you stupid little shit. Don’t start that shit with these guys. They will take you apart at the seams, especially since you are NOT providing any evidence of what you did.
OH, yeah, mine’s already gone in.
@60 Ok that makes sense Saddam said that he had them so we should just take his word for it.. If Saddam had wmd, he would have used them to try to hold onto power.. You obviously will buy into any right wing talking point.. Let me tell you something all politicians are scumbag liars even your beloved republicans.
EH was a hack who received far more accolades than any of his pedantic writings deserved, he was also a vain old douchebag who couldn’t handle his liquor or his aging very well so he suck started his shotgun….apparently his weak, pathetic genes were inherited and passed along as many of these Hemingways kill themselves or end up institutionalized.
Genetic mental illness is hardly a trait that creates great writing, too many Hemingway 4sslickers thought this drunken buffoon a great expressionist…his work is hardly noteworthy, it’s dated and expresses the ignorance and bigotry of the age in which is what written. Clearly the product of an unstable mind inherited from his successfully suicidal father.
@57 Hemingway is neither for or against intervention, he’s just worm food at this point. At least he’s been doing something relatively useful over the last 52 years…worms gotta eat.
@68 11b 1st BDE 1st ID, Sep 2003-Sep 2004- 4th BDE 1st ID 2006-2007
@70 – What makes you assume that I’m a Republican, you moron?
Is it because I can think for myself and don’t just suck up the kool-aid? Or is it because I don’t live in a brain-dead enclosure like you do and my memory goes back further than the last 10 minutes?
You still haven’t answered a simple question that other people asked you.
What was your unit and what was your MOS?
If you have so much experience in Iraq that you want to share, surely you can come up with an answer to that.
Where were you at sparky?
@74 You can’t think for yourself and you suck up republican kool aide.. Did you go to Iraq? You sure do claim to be an expert on all their military weapons systems for the last 30 years
I always liked the Iron Sheik.
Aw. It now wants to engage in a pissing contest.
You simply do not have the quals to engage in sensible conversation with most of the folks here. But many do get a LOT of entertainment playing with fools.
Thanks for playing.
@56 Until we see your Pulitzer your opinion on Hemingway is without merit….
@77–I kinda liked Rowdy Roddy Piper, man.
@74–kinda what I figured. All blow, no show. And please show me where I said I claimed to be an expert on “all their military weapons systems”, whoever “they” might happen to be.
MOS/Unit/Dates served. Very simple, scooter.
Did you not see comment 73?
NHSparky, @74 was ME.
Hulkamaniac, try to get something into that dormant organ you have for a brain.
A – I pay attention to what goes on outside the boundaries of a smartphone newsfeed, because I don’t have a smartphone, and don’t want one.
B – “A” means that I sat through hours and hours of live broadcastiing on the Gulf War from C-SPAN, some of which had little or no commentary, just the live TV send from Kuwait, including the Patriot missiles bringing down SCUDS. Doing that does not make me, or anyone else, an expert on weaponry or weapons systems. It makes me an EYE WITNESS, because it was LIVE IN LIVING COLOR.
C – I am, and always have been, and INDEPENDENT voter. I have NEVER in my life voted a straight political line, and never will. Just because I disagree with you and do not suck up the spiel currently coming out of the White House, that does NOT make me a Republican. It simply means that I can and to think for myself. If I object to carrying an unnecessary military action involving US personnel into a country in which we have NO economic interest, just because that spoiled brat in the White House says it’s what HE wants to do, it’s MY right to object to it.
So how do I know so much about what Saddam Hussein had at his disposal? Because it was broadcast live on TV, you moron.
And last but not least, I was in the Navy from 1967 to 1970 and 1972 to 1974 for 5 years, 9 months, 28 days. That’s before you were born, asshole. The split is because I was completing my BA degree. Anything else you want to know, turkeybutt?
@82 you ansewerd my question, your opinion is meaningless because you have no idea what you are talking about..
No, that comment hadn’t posted for whatever reason, scooter. Now I see it, and you know what? Still doesn’t give you any more (or less) credibility than anyone else here. Your MOS shows me you played with boomsticks, it does NOT show me that you’d know what the fuck you were looking for is someone told you to go find WMD’s.
As for me, I’m (was) just a silly bubblehead (nuke). Let’s just say I’ve been a lot closer to a lot more “big boomsticks” than you’ll ever see.
@83 As meaningless as yours, mine, and everyone else’s….
Let me see if I understand what #83 said: my opinion is meaningless because I don’t know what I’m talking about, just because I watched it live.
Yeah, that’s a non sequitur response, if I ever came across one. I was unaware that I had to actually be there in person, as a civilian, to see it and have an opinion about it. Didn’t know there was such a rule. But since my tax money went into that war, I think I do have a right to an opinion, after all.
A direct answer to a direct question does not deserve an illogical statement, does it now?
So I wasn’t in the military then and I wasn’t in Iraq? How does that mean I don’t know what I’m talking about when I saw it for myself? Oh. My own time in Navy doesn’t count, either, huh?
Okay, since you haven’t said or done anything that rose above the level of political slaps at everyone here, I have to say that your opinion doesn’t count for much of anything. If you think it’s A-okay to go launch ’em against Syria, never mind get involved in that mess with combat troops, then you just trot your bony ass down to the recruiter’s office and sign right up. And don’t look back. Something might be following you.
Never been to Antarctica, but I seriously have no reason to not believe those who have been there telling me that it exists.
There’s something else. The US military is supposed to be under drawdowns, cutbacks, and so-called sequestration. Wars cost money. According to bodaprez, there’s no money to even provide the military overall with a standard 1.9% raise, which comes from tax revenues. No, they have to accept a 1% raise. There is no money to pay for fueling airplanes which means that pilots have less flight time, ships that are nuke-powered can’t be kept running and diesel-driven ships can’t be fueled but have to stay in port, and troops have less in the way of training, equipment and ammo.
But as I said, wars cost money, so if there is no money to afford a standard pay raise to the military or any of the rest of those things I mentioned, how can any administration justify the cost of using Tomahawk and Cruise missiles against a country that has not threatened us in anyway? Where is the money coming from to pay for that? Anyone who thinks we won’t have troops en scene is daydreaming and needs to read the wording of that ‘limited’ resolution.
That’s tax money, not budgeted but suddenly available for something that (as most recently polled) most people in this country don’t want. Oh, yeah – a LOT of them voted for the spoiled brat in the White House. It’s my tax money, and everyone else’s tax money, and we aren’t drinking the kool-aid when we say ‘Enough!’
Just for the record, the administration has chosen to dismiss and ignore any and all of the UN report on findings on the chemical weapons, due out in about 10 days.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-dismisses-un-inspections-in-syria-of-alleged-chemical-weapons-sites/2013/09/04/2b1cf3c4-14e3-11e3-880b-7503237cc69d_story.html
That kool-aid sure has boiled away to nothing all of a sudden.
This is just one more nail in the coffin.
http://news.msn.com/us/across-the-us-bridges-crumble-as-repair-funds-fall-short
There’s no money to repair the infrastucture in this country, which would keep people employed, but there IS money to go fire missiles at a country that is undergoing internal rebellion.
Yes, that has many fewer consequences than aging bridges collapsing while commuters cross them. They won’t collapse from the kind of microcracks that dropped that bridge in St. Paul a few years ago. These are bridges and roads that are crumbling from lack of repair/reconstruction money.
Nice to see how my tax money is being used.
The ruling class, to include the usual republican surrender monkeys, have decided we must attack Syria. All these congfressional hearings are Kabuki theater. These people do not know or understand the concpet of 2nd and 3rd orders of effects. Won’t it be quite ironic (and disgusting) if we attack next Wednesday, giving support to Al Quada.
Ex-PH2, NHSparky, et al? You finished fuggin’ around with Animaniac yet?
C’mon folks, lets stick to the task at hand. I’ll start.
Any predictions on what Barry will say on Tuesday? Any predictions what he’ll eventually do? (I think it’s best to change the subject instead of giving so much attention to the other clown. Besides, TAH has Psul Wickre. That should be enough for now.)
Discuss.
I’m quite done with that idiot, frankly, USMCE8Ret. He’s as useful as an empty thread spool. PSul the uncool is under scrutiny by the WV law enforcement. I believe he’s either been paid or will be paid a visit, for not returning phone calls to the officer who tried to contact him. Being reported to the FBI for another denial of service attack last week is more points against him. In regard to Bodaprez and the real world, I have this. From now until the end of the month, it appears that he’ll come under increasing pressure to do the right thing, which is not necessarily what HE wants to do. He is on the world stage now, like it or not, and is in a position to make a calculated decision that might not be popular with his most ardent supporters, but would avoid the conflict in Syria. However, he’s so ego-centric that having everyone like him is more important that anything else – we all know this now – and he will most likely tell people what they want to hear, while he’ll make off-the-cuff remarks that may be caught live and posted on the internet. This is between now, 9/6/13 and 9/15/13. He has control issues – never had anyone say ‘no, you can’t’ to him – and when the vote is taken on the limited approach to Syria, I don’t think he will get his way. As it stands now, the vote in both Houses leans heavily toward ‘No’ in both parties, with a large number as yet undecided. That will be his control issue: he doesn’t win the popularity contest this time, and he won’t like it. It’s very important to him to be ‘liked’. He will have until about Sept. 15 to get what he wants. If he does not get it, it will be due to losing his backing in both Houses of Congress. At the same time, if he decides to override their vote, he will be held accountable for whatever happens down the road if he orders an attack on Syria.… Read more »