More “Words of Wisdom” About Syria from the State Department
Well, our “esteemed” Department of State is at it again. And as usual, they are being “farsighted, and protective of US national interests”.
Yeah, if you couldn’t tell – that last was sarcasm.
Apparently a largish number of State Department officials – 51, to be precise – have signed something called a “dissent channel cable”. This document, apparently intended for the POTUS and his senior advisors, calls for the current gang of fools in charge Administration to direct “targeted military action” against the Assad regime in Syria.
Yeah, that’s the ticket. More pinprick strikes and/or drone operations.
I hate to break it to our “esteemed” DoS officials, but that train left the station years ago.
Back in 2012-2013, we stood by and did nothing at the beginning of the Syrian civil war. We then gave lip-service and a totally ineffective pittance of support to the then-existent moderate Syrian opposition (and wasted literally hundreds of millions doing so). As a result, al Qaeda and Daesh co-opted the Syrian opposition; they now own virtually all of it. There are effectively no freaking Syrian opposition moderates left.
Moreover, in the last year or two Russia has moved in to Syria big time. Yeah, that’s right – this Administration’s hesitant, bumbling inaction has allowed Russia to move back into the Middle East directly for pretty much the first time since Egypt kicked them out in the 1970s. Now, any “targeted military action” against the Syrian government is virtually a lock to involve striking forces belonging to their Russian allies as well. That wouldn’t have been the case if we hadn’t sat on our hands and scolded at the beginning.
In short, we’ve fornicated Fido well and thoroughly here. There are no good solutions left that promote US national interests.
Don’t believe me on that last? Well, consider:
• If we stand by and do nothing, Assad continues to kill off his own people while fighting al Qaeda/Daesh forces – with firm Russian and Iranian support. Russia will demand compensation for helping, probably in the form of a long-term presence in bases in Syria. Iran may well do the same. That’s bad, but it’s also IMO probably the best option we’ve got now.
• If we intervene with “targeted strikes”, we hit Russian and Iranian forces along with Syrian forces. The Iranians may well not be able to react. But does anyone here think the Russians won’t shoot back? Then, we either go in with both feet or back down. If we go in with both feet, how does the possibility of “simultaneous war with Russia and Iran” sound? Is Syria worth that?
• Even if by some miracle the Russians and Iranians leave, we’re still screwed. Let’s say we help the Syrian opposition take out the Assad regime, and the Syrian opposition takes over. That opposition now appears thoroughly dominated by al Qaeda and Daesh. If you think they’ll willingly let a “moderate regime” friendly to the West take power, you’re naïve as hell. So backing the Syrian opposition and winning now probably sets up an al Qaeda or Daesh Caliphate in Syria, either immediately or within a couple of years. (Remember – after the Iranian Revolution, Khomeini didn’t immediately take power. It took several months for Khomeini to throw out the remaining Iranian moderates under Bakhtiar and Bazargan – who initially held power – and establish his dictatorial theocracy.)
Anyway: initially, we had options. Now, we really have no good options. So jumping in militarily with both feet – unless we’re willing to conquer and occupy, possibly after fighting a war against both Russia and Iran – makes absolutely no sense at all.
. . .
Yeah, the Syrian Civil War is nasty. Lots of innocents are dying. But there aren’t any “good guys” left to support that have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. We get involved, it’s a lock that all we’ll do is p!ss away more US lives and dollars to no good end.
We had our chance about 4 years ago to make a difference in Syria. We screwed up by-the-numbers then, and the chance is no longer there.
But here, we picked the worst possible course of action. We took actions that destabilized Syria (see “Spring, Arab”) – then failed to follow through, leaving those we encouraged twisting in the wind and leading indirectly to the rise of Daesh. Hell, letting Assad continue to rule Syria with an iron hand would have cost fewer innocents their lives, kept Russia “on the outside looking in”, and likely marginalized Daesh or prevented their formation entirely.
I’ve maintained all along that we had no “dog in this fight”; that was true IMO from day one. Assad is a true bastard, but many if not all foreseeable potential alternatives and outcomes of his overthrow then were no better for the US. Now, barring a literal miracle all of those alternatives are IMO far worse than his continued rule.
Sometimes, “Better the Devil ye know . . . . “ is damn good advice.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Foreign Policy, Government Incompetence
Yep. I said that this morning, right here on good ol’ TAH: http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=66370#comment-2863513
The Slacker in Chief has screwed up more times than I can count, and this just ties it. Maybe he should have sucked up to Vlad a little more when he got his second term.
How many more times is the Fool on the Hill going to screw the pooch for us before he leaves? If he left now and left Biden in charge, it might be better than his sticking around.
In this case, Ex-PH2, it’s other idiots at DoS who are trying to convince the Occupant, 1600 Penn Ave, Wash DC, to do more.
The POTUS had his chances back in 2012-2013 to intervene in Syria and maybe accomplish something. That’s when he drew that “red line” that he promptly ignored – and the world knew we weren’t serious about doing a damn thing in Syria. As well as providing morale support – and virtually nothing else – to Syrian “moderates”, assuming they ever really existed.
The co-opting of the Syrian opposition by al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists, the rise of Daesh, Russia and Iran’s entries, and a protracted conflict in Syria were all foreseeable outcomes of the course of action we selected (talk tough, do nothing, embolden others). We should have left well enough alone.
Oh, I know, Hondo. When I saw the article on Reuters, I wondered briefly why those 51 people waited so long to do that.
Now, no matter what, we’re screwed and whoever gets put in that seat next will have to deal with the mess. If it’s shrillary, I couldn’t wish a more unpleasant possibility to have to face because if she screwed up with it, she gets blamed for it.
No, it’ll still be Bush’s fault.
And Hillary wants to continue the policies of Obama !!!…..get ready for the mushroom clouds and the end of civilization as we know it, if she were to be elected by fools who would buy into her bovine manure…
Is Syria really worth WW3 ? ….NO !!!!
gee! I sure am glad I am stupid and didn’t go to Harvard, Yale, Princeton or any Ivy league kumbaya indoctrination for the removal of common sense,
damn the people who have been running this country for the last 24 years and their minions sure have screwed up BIG TIME, but especially this current idiot POTUS and his state dept. since 2009, 2 SoS’s Clinton & Kerry, ivy league morons in charge, and both of them want/wanted to be POTUS smh with a face palm..and both of them protested the war in Vietnam in the 60 & 70’s, a mere skirmish compared to what the end result of this mess could be.
I would never underestimate the Russian way of waging war, since Obama has turned are once great military into a hollow under equipped force and an experiment of social sexual engineering, instead of maintaining a mostly highly skilled fighting machine.
To many big egos playing with matches & millions of lives, thing is they’ll all be cowering 200 feet underground in special bunkers, while the rest of us become x-ray shadows on the walls of the ruined cities & towns and piles of salt…..bastards don’t know how to pick a fight worth fighting for…and Syria is not worth a possible nuclear exchange end result with Russia IMO
“Sometimes, “Better the Devil ye know . . . . “ is damn good advice.”
Not just Assad but also with Murbarak and Quaddafi who WERE the lesser of other evils and two other huge pooches copulated by B. Hussein 0bama & Company.
Syria never really had any good option for us as you point out. Obama thinking the “moderates” were going to be worth supporting just shows the level of naivete this entire administration has regarding operations in the Middle East.
For a man who supposedly so worldly and educated it’s been quite disappointing seeing him do worse than the previous clowns occupying the White House…16 years of piss poor foreign policy decisions haven’t done anything worthwhile to stabilize the region or bring the US any more trusted allies.
Looking to this November I don’t see a lot of foreign policy genius on either side of the aisle so it should remain a bit of a mess for sometime yet.
Well, he went to Harvard after all. That tells me enough.
I often “spar” with a Harvard professor on facebook about actions and issues regarding Afghanistan and Iraq. His first problem, he thinks he knows everything because he read it in books and listened to others talk about it. His second problem, I’m not just some dumb private who talks out my ass like a Harvard professor does. I would’ve thought he’d shut up after the first couple of times I shot him down, but nope.
That’s pretty much the kind of “education” King Barry’s knowledge base is established by. “I went to Harvard, bow down before my greatness!”
RIght, if you’re going to act like the smartest guy in the room you’d better damn well make sure you are in fact the smartest guy in the room otherwise you look like just another asshole with a big mouth.
There are quite a few book smart folks with no real world experience or street savvy. They are very often in for a hard few years while they get knocked around by those who have the street savvy and real world experience. There are always exceptions of course, but they far more rare than the Ivy League would have you believe.
This is why I love the speech Robin Williams gives to Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. Just pure fucking awesome when it comes to “real life”.
There are meme’s interchanging it with privates on the web, but the speech is still excellent for the situation.
” That’s bad, but it’s also IMO probably the best option we’ve got now.”
Exactly. There is no “good” result coming out of this situation. Much like this Presidential election, there are only choices that “suck less”. And why is Assad wacking his own people and his opposition a bad thing, overall. Sure, dead people are always a downer, but if both sides would line up to f@ck you the nanosecond you try to intervene, why not let them thin each other out, first? Give it about 5 years and see what is left.
And we haven’t involved ourselves in a single conflict near the Sandbox that ever showed a positive ROI. Why add another failure to the list?
Actually, we apparently made $$$ on the first Gulf War. Unfortunately, IMO we unfortunately stopped about 48 hours early.
Give the folks over there in 1991 another 48 hours, and Hussein never survives the rebellion after the war. He’d have had insufficient forces left to stop a neighborhood riot, much less a rebellion.
Hindsight is 20/20, and I wasn’t in the “driver’s seat”. But I don’t think I’d have stopped while 3 Republican Guard Divisions were still intact.
How so? Pronoun-rich as my reply, but who is “we”? The US government? And this is taking into account benefits for wounded, oil cleanup, corrupt reconstruction, and so on?
And I agree, no matter the cost, deal with all forms of resistance permanently and to the fullest extent. That prevents chronic issues later on.
I’ve read that DoD actually ended up modestly financially ahead on the first Gulf War after all foreign reimbursements/items provided in-kind were totaled up.
Regarding the clean-up and reconstruction, we didn’t fund much of that after the first Gulf War. Pretty sure Kuwait funded their own reconstruction and environmental clean-up efforts starting in 1991, and we didn’t occupy Iraq and attempt to reconstruct it after that war.
Regarding costs for wounded: accident and other non-duty injury and death rates were far lower for deployed troops during Desert Shield and Desert Storm than normal peacetime operations. I’m guessing the overall cost to the VA was a wash – well, it will be unless we get stupid and let the VA go down the “presumptive condition due to exposure” route regarding multiple conditions also associated with normal living for service in the Gulf like we did for service in Vietnam. (Don’t get me wrong – if someone can demonstrate likelihood of exposure due to military service, they deserve the presumption. But a blanket presumption is just, well, stupid public policy when it comes to things also associated with lifestyle, heredity, and aging.)
BHWHAHAHAHAHA !!!!!!!
It’s the funny season again…
They gotta cover for Billary I guess all the money they are donating to her campaign isn’t enough…
August 20, 2012, Mr. Obama made his “red line” announcement. He was running for reelection against Mitt Romney. That had to figure into the political theater that he wanted to project for the political center.
Based on history, I conclude that Obama had no intention of bombing Syria or sending in troops so the “red line” was a bluff … Mr. Obama _hoped_ that Syria would not call him on this because then he would have to decide. If Syria called his bluff and he sent in troops, he would lose votes from his base – he could conceivably lose the election. Syria could read the tea leaves. If they attacked before the election, Mr. Obama might be forced to send in troops to maintain the appearance of strength – he would not think kindly about a Syrian administration who forced him into such a position. If they waited until after the election, he might even be grateful for not having his hand forced.
August 21, 2013, a year and a day after the “red line” pronouncement – 10 months after Mr. Obama was reelected – came the Ghouta attack. Mr. Obama’s second term had three years to run, politics at the time did not force him to do anything. And so, he didn’t.
It appears to me that Mr. Obama cannot see past the next House election – that is his personal horizon – and dead people are not his problem. Not dead Syrians or Iraqis. Unless they happen during his administration, dead American troops and American civilians don’t matter either. Keeping his party in power matters, nothing else does.
Someone doesn’t have an exit strategy. Or an entrance strategy.
Remind me again why mom jeans picked a fight with Putin that the whole world knows he can’t win. God I’m glad I retired in ’06
There are still ‘good guys’ in Syria. They’re called Kurds. Give them support. Hell recognize them as an independent state. I support that in Iraq as well and to hell with all of the Sunni/Shia bs.
Reminds me of the Hmong.
“Wronged in War; Wronged in Peace”
Unfortunately, it looks like we missed the boat on that too.
The Syrian government apparently abandoned most Kurdish areas in Syria when the Syrian Civil War broke out. And while the Kurds are receiving external support, it’s not from us.
The Russians are the ones currently supporting the Kurds as well as the Syrian government.
I’m not so sure about the Kurds. They are a bunch of communists and totalitarians.
If, and i mean IF, supporting the Kurds furthers American interests then i don’t have a problem supporting them, but i don’t think I agree with this administration in what American interests are.
This Administration’s interests? (Falls down laughing.) Surely you jest! (Gigglesnort)
Okay. This ‘administration’ has no purpose more important than looking good on TV in a suit, gladhanding everyone in sight, and playing lousy golf.
Narcissism is the #1 Priority of King Barry. His Ego knows no bounds.
I don’t know. It seems to me the community organizer in chief is trying to fundamentally transform America, so it is more than looking “good” on TV.
“She’s seen enough war to make a general want to go home and shell peas…. Don’t tell me, sir, war teaches you a lot. It only shows fools what they didn’t know but might have guessed.” – Waiting For Daylight
Well, here’s something interesting. Per Reuters News, Vlad says he accepts that the US is probably the world’s ONLY superpower, and that he is willing to work with the US.
He also calls Trump flamboyant, but if you read this article, I think he likes Trump.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-forum-putin-usa-idUSKCN0Z31G4
In a sidebar, there’s a link to another article that says Vlad does NOT want another Cold War. Fine by me.
I imagine he thinks it’ll be easier to deal with Trump than with Hillary. At least Trump speaks his mind. Hillary will be a conniving cunt lying to his face while trying to strap-on him from the rear.
Or, Vlad is trying to undermine the Trumpminator. He knows he is not popular in America.