They're bombing Syria again

[Jotari]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/world/middleeast/trump-strikes-syria-attack.html

Britain, Fance and the USA are launching attacks on Syria. Not sure what there is to say, but it seems worth discussing.

[Thane]

Heading home back to Europe from Japan next month. This seems like poor timing.

Last time I was here Russia invaded Ukraine. Maybe my trips here are cursed.

Badly timed jokes aside, why? What is to be gained from this aside from more death? It feels unlikely that they'd manage to get rid of all the chemical weapons in airstrikes like these.

[Captain Karnage]

Well, let's just hope things just cool down.

In case you're in the vicinity of a nuclear explosion take the advice of Serenes's local emergency management guy.

Step 1. Grab the closest lawn chair.

Step 2. Lay it out in the yard and relax.

Step 3. Crack open a cold one, you're not going to survive.

[Tryhard]

party in the middle east yet again

edit: at least i got a laugh out of alex jones' reaction

 

Edited April 14, 2018 by Tryhard

[SuperIb]

I would say I'm surprised, but honestly, at this point I'm really not. Regardless, I can't see any good coming from this. Yay for rash decisions~

@Tryhard Bombings aside... Alex Jones high-key makes me concerned. He's just so... yikes. I feel bad for the staff that works with him, haha. But yeah, that is a pretty good reaction lmao.

[MU woadie]

4 hours ago, Thane said:

Badly timed jokes aside, why? What is to be gained from this aside from more death? It feels unlikely that they'd manage to get rid of all the chemical weapons in airstrikes like these.

For the general populace, we only have everything to lose.

But politicians and private corporations have different interests than the general populace. A lot of outside nations have a vested geopolitical/economic interest in Syria going down. They more than likely want more than just airstrikes, given what stances they've taken on Syria in the last 5 years. I've heard a lot of minor reasons that add up as to why foreign powers want to regime change to someone who will "play ball" so to speak, but I don't want to spout things without sources. Likewise for Iran, China and Russia, they have an interest in keeping Assad in power because he does "play ball" with them.

And because the US Tax budget spends so much on the military, they need to justify the spending to keep arms manufacturers in business, which in turn props up a lot of local US economies, as they create tons of jobs in the areas they produce the weapons/equipment in.

[Raptok]

Assad used chemical weapons. This must have consequences. The use of those weapons is abhorrent, and their use cannot be normalised.

[Etrurian emperor]

Does anyone else recall how vital it as that Trump needed to get into office because otherwise warhawk Hillary would intervene in Syria and start a conflict with Russia? What are Trump fans saying about that now? 

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Does anyone else recall how vital it as that Trump needed to get into office because otherwise warhawk Hillary would intervene in Syria and start a conflict with Russia? What are Trump fans saying about that now? 

You think she wouldn't have done the exact same thing?

[Etrurian emperor]

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

You think she wouldn't have done the exact same thing?

No but we would at least be spared the tweets about the rockets being new and beautiful! 

But that's the thing. Trump was ''supposed'' to be all different from Clinton in this regard and now he isn't just as he wasn't any different in the lies and corruption of Clinton that was supposedly so vile about her. Except that his versions of those flaws were more obvious. 

[Moblin Major General]

I wonder when Russia is going to start rattling their sabres about this. The amount of deflection that Russia is trying to accuse NATO of is sickening when they have propped up other despots besides Assad, and when they get called out, they bang their fists on the table. Granted,when the Security Council met this last time, all the NATO members left when the Russian rep. started blatantly denying a gas attack ever occured. Worse, every video about this on YouTube has people breaking out their tin foil hats like the world is going to hell. Great times we live in.

[AzamaMeta]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't it start in late 2012/early 2013, back when Assad was accused of using chemical weapons on his people? That openly breaks Chemical Weapons Convention, which I'm pretty sure Syria has signed back in 2013. We can't have tyrants openly breaking laws like this and getting away scot free, in my humblest of opinions. While yes, the idea has been tainted along the way by greedy outside forces looking for personal gain, the original thought about us needing to stand up for what is humane can't be tainted, and I think we should all be willing to do what we can here; and yes, that does include the recent bombings.

but this is all just my ramblings ignore it if you want ig

[Tryhard]

3 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Does anyone else recall how vital it as that Trump needed to get into office because otherwise warhawk Hillary would intervene in Syria and start a conflict with Russia? What are Trump fans saying about that now? 

They don't say anything. Trump said only eleven days ago that he wanted the US out of Syria to his advisors. Evidently, his word is worth nothing if that wasn't already obvious.

Even if they express their disapproval, Trump's fans will be back to supporting him if it is indeed just a fire and forget strike, just like they did last April.

[Jotari]

14 minutes ago, AzamaMeta said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't it start in late 2012/early 2013, back when Assad was accused of using chemical weapons on his people? That openly breaks Chemical Weapons Convention, which I'm pretty sure Syria has signed back in 2013. We can't have tyrants openly breaking laws like this and getting away scot free, in my humblest of opinions. While yes, the idea has been tainted along the way by greedy outside forces looking for personal gain, the original thought about us needing to stand up for what is humane can't be tainted, and I think we should all be willing to do what we can here; and yes, that does include the recent bombings.

but this is all just my ramblings ignore it if you want ig

Well that's the big stickler. How do we solve the problem without bombing them back to the stone age? And will bombing them back to the stone age even help matters at all, or will it just give rise to more anti western enmity in the Middle East?

[Shoblongoo]

On 4/14/2018 at 10:03 AM, Jotari said:

Well that's the big stickler. How do we solve the problem without bombing them back to the stone age? And will bombing them back to the stone age even help matters at all, or will it just give rise to more anti western enmity in the Middle East?

"Solve the problem" as in resolve the humanitarian crisis and restore normal order to Syria???

Realistically--we can't. There isn't the political will among Western Powers for the boots-on-the-ground presence and open acceptance of refugees that would require. Even supposing that there was, the factions we would have to target are in direct alignment with and fighting alongside Russian forces. Going after them would bring us perilously close to major superpowers taking direct shots at each other, and risk escalation into a full blown World War.

What we can do is take discreet action to maintain the international taboo against use of banned weapons. And independent of whether or not we can solve the humanitarian crisis in Syria specifically, there is general value to the whole world in seeing that taboo enforced.

Any rogue state that uses chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in the course of conventional warfare must know that it will be met with severe reprisal from the broader international community; reprisal so severe as to negate any advantage that might be gained from using said weapons to begin with.

There is a very real risk that if Assad stays in power with Russian protection and faces no real reprisal beyond degradation of his own army (which he doesn't even need as long as the Russians are backing him), the use of these weapons becomes normalized.

For the aforementioned reasons, I favor the military strikes that were undertaken last night AND further action.

Edited April 16, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[MU woadie]

I think too many of you are so quick to assume this was done by whom the U.S. and Allied governments say it was done. We need to look at things historically, becuase again, the populace and most politicians/people in power often times have very different interests. We need to think more critically about things, as military intervention has serious consequences both for the region itself, and possibly the world over.

1- First we need to establish the United States and Allies pick and choose which war crimes to take action on. When Syria uses chemical weapons, we must take military action. But when the Israeli Defense force uses lethal sniper and tank fire on Protestors in Gaza, we block investigation. We criticize and put economic pressure on Venezuela for starving it's people, but Saudi Arabia is allowed to suppress women and have executioners literally behead people in the streets. I think we can agree; ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE BAD. However, if we are to be the batstion of morality in the world we say we are, we can not pick and choose which dictators we want to attack. We should, in theory, kill all of them. We very clearly don't.

So I'm gonna draw the conclusion here that, war crimes and violence against civillians is not what NATO powers are interested in. Even if it's what their populace is interested in.

2- We must also look to recent Western intervention in the middle-east, particularly in the Iraq war. The justification for Invading Iraq in 2003 was that Saddam Hussein possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction. Saddam Hussein had no Weapons of Mass Destruction. This is not the first time this had happened in American history either, as the Gulf of Tonkin incident that escalated the Vietnam War, was revealed to be completely fabricated in 2005. So with this in mind we must note that our own Military and Government is not above lying to us, the general populace, in the name of invading a sovereign nation. To tangent off from this, in 2013 CIA Director John Brennon told the Senate Intelligence Committee that they were not monitoring the computer network of said Senate Intelligence Comittee. John Brennon lied about that, so we must note that not only are they willing to lie to the American populace, and it's allies. But also to each other.

So going into any signalling for military action, at the very least, we must be skeptical of the information they are using to justify this. As they have quite literally, lied to us before.

3- Addressing the Syrian Chemical attacks itself, we need to be aware of the entire history of chemical attacks in Syria, of which there have been many. We can start with the first major example, the 2013 attacks. In wake of the UN investigation, Assad did agree to surrender all chemical weapons. In spite of (or in addition to this) The United States and Allied forces still conducted bombings on Syrian Military Targets. This sent a clear message to Assad, that if chemical weapons are used, then foreign intervention is likely. And when you're trying to win a civil war, you don't want foreign intervention against you. And looking at the numbers or chemical weapons attacks/injuries in the Syrian Civil war, the Syrian Army and it's allies have only used or been accused of using chemical weapons 4 times, 2 of which were incidents where only Syrian soldiers themselves were injured. By contrast, in April of 2014 alone, there were 14 chemical weapons attacks that injured over 300 civillians, confirmed to be committed by anti-Assad forces.

Addressing the other 2 events where the Syrian army is attributed to having used chemical weapons, one of which is obviously this event in 2018. The second was the 2017 attack, which again, saw US strikes against Syrian Targets. So we can establish that twice now, under 2 different presidents has Assad understood that chemical weapons will only be a detriment to his successful war effort. We know that between October of 2017 and Febuary, the Syrian Army had launched a major counter-offensive on ISIS and subsequently pushed into Rebel controlled territory. The Syrian Army had the initiative and was winning as of Febuary 2018. So one would need to question what the strategic value is for the Syrian Armed Forces to use a gas attack on civillians, knowing full well what the international response would be. There is nothing to be gained from it, only everything to lose. It's also very important to note that these coalition attacks on Syria have been done before any UN investigation into the incident can even occur.

To surmise:
-Western nations seem to only react war crimes/crimes against humanity on some dictators, but not others.
-The United States Military and Government have been caught lying to the civillian population to drum up support for war in the past.
-Rebels have been confirmed to have used chemical weapons in this Syrian Civil War as well.
-The Assad regime knows that using chemical weapons will always result in outside intervention.

So ultimately, regardless of what your opinions on Ba'athism or chemical weapons are, I think the first thing we need to consciously understand is that the leaders of our nations do not want to punish Assad for using chemicals weapons for the same reasons you all do (Morality). They don't give a shit about human rights or Syrian civllians, or else, why would we bomb Syria as a response to begin with? I find it both absurd that the idea of Bashar Al'Assad as some murderous Disney villian, and the idea our leaders don't have some ulterior motives that aren't in our interests as a collective society. And I say that as someone who is very much disgusted with the concept of Ba'athism, Assad's actual political stances. They say history repeats itself, so try and remember every war your country has been involved in, and how happy you were with the outcome of that war by the end of it.

[Tryhard]

I don't necessarily disagree with all of the above. Assad is undoubtedly not a good actor, but I question the purpose when under Western governments jurisdiction he gave up chemical weapons in 2013/14 in peace talks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Syria's_chemical_weapons 

I'm willing to believe the US/UK governments on some things. For example, the recent poisoning via nerve agent of an ex-Russian spy in the UK. While I don't exactly put entire faith in the UK government, Russia have a long history of strange and unusual deaths occurring to people who are exiled or betray them, the most notable being Alexander Litvinenko also in the UK some time ago (and hell, "revenge is a dish best served cold" seems to be a Russian principle going all the back to when Stalin had Trotsky murdered years after exile from Russia). In this case - I'm on board with the fact that it was very likely to be Russian actors.

This, I'm far less generous towards. It also shows how the Democrats (on a whole) have the opportunity to put themselves forward as the anti-war party, and ultimately fail entirely at that, because they aren't anti-war or conflict.

Given the track record of Western governments and the Middle East, I would prefer if they would decide to be non-interventionist for once and for Trump to pull at least the US out of Syria like he said he would do. I wonder if Bolton has been in his ear already. Chemical attacks are horrible, but I really would prefer if the US and its allies didn't have another party in the sand that have went so well before.

As much as I am willing to give credence to the whole "America does bad things too", and we could speak for a while about the horrible things Saudi Arabia, US ally and benefactor of millions in arms from Mr. Trump, many of it illegal under international law, I never gave the US credit as some perfect arbitor of justice because they are clearly not and are selective in who they criticise.

Edited April 14, 2018 by Tryhard

[Lewyn]

I wouldn't put it over Trump to push congress for approval for all out war.  It would distract from all the negative stuff directed at him, might serve some other personal interests as well.  I wouldn't put it over the GOP controlled Congress to approve of war to distract from what a clown their appointed president is.  

The righteous hammer of justice.  That is completely biased, that only enters war for personal interest not for the greater good or some other stupid reason.  What about the countries they choose to send aid to, sometimes who are in direct conflict with another country.  What do those other countries think?  They probably hate the US, and well they should.  

Just a huge waste of money that could go to much more meaningful things, that you know actually make the citizens lives better.  I certainly don't trust whatever is being said about US military strikes, it could all be hogwash just to get the people to think a certain or support actions that have a much more sinister motive.   They've done it time and time again before, so why anyone would trust them I don't know.  

 

[Shoblongoo]

4 hours ago, Tryhard said:

I don't necessarily disagree with all of the above. Assad is undoubtedly not a good actor, but I question the purpose when under Western governments jurisdiction he gave up chemical weapons in 2013/14 in peace talks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Syria's_chemical_weapons 

I'm willing to believe the US/UK governments on some things. For example, the recent poisoning via nerve agent of an ex-Russian spy in the UK. While I don't exactly put entire faith in the UK government, Russia have a long history of strange and unusual deaths occurring to people who are exiled or betray them, the most notable being Alexander Litvinenko also in the UK some time ago (and hell, "revenge is a dish best served cold" seems to be a Russian principle going all the back to when Stalin had Trotsky murdered years after exile from Russia). In this case - I'm on board with the fact that it was very likely to be Russian actors.

This, I'm far less generous towards. It also shows how the Democrats (on a whole) have the opportunity to put themselves forward as the anti-war party, and ultimately fail entirely at that, because they aren't anti-war or conflict.

Given the track record of Western governments and the Middle East, I would prefer if they would decide to be non-interventionist for once and for Trump to pull at least the US out of Syria like he said he would do. I wonder if Bolton has been in his ear already. Chemical attacks are horrible, but I really would prefer if the US and its allies didn't have another party in the sand that have went so well before.

As much as I am willing to give credence to the whole "America does bad things too", and we could speak for a while about the horrible things Saudi Arabia, US ally and benefactor of millions in arms from Mr. Trump, many of it illegal under international law, I never gave the US credit as some perfect arbitor of justice because they are clearly not and are selective in who they criticise.

Gentlemans disagreement--I don't think the intervention went far enough. Subject their government compounds to sustained bombardment, cyber-attack their Internet access to death, and target for assassinatation any member of Assad's inner circle who shows his face in public. The point that chemical weapon use is off-limits and that it's never worth using them--if for no other reason than the severity of the punishment for so using--hasn't been properly hammered home yet.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Moblin Major General]

28 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Gentlemans disagreement--I don't think the intervention went far enough. Subject their government compounds to sustained bombardment, cyber-attack their Internet access to death, and target for assassinatation any member of Assad's inner circle who shows his face in public. The point that chemical weapon use is off-limits and that it's never worth using them--if for no other reason than the severity of the punishment for so using--hasn't been properly hammered home yet.

Problem: the CIA doesn't carry out assassinations themselves, not for a long time. As for internet, that is probably long gone by this point, so trying to stop their internet isn't an issue. As for bombing, we as a military get really trigger happy. We would be doing so much more damage to innocents than to Assad. The cost of using chemical weapons should be punished harshly, but the US is too careless and judicious to do so in a way that doesn't mark us as warmongers.

[Sias]

23 hours ago, Thane said:

Badly timed jokes aside, why? What is to be gained from this aside from more death? It feels unlikely that they'd manage to get rid of all the chemical weapons in airstrikes like these.

Well, there's always lots of $$$ to be gained by the arms industry.

1 hour ago, Shoblongoo said:

Gentlemans disagreement--I don't think the intervention went far enough. Subject their government compounds to sustained bombardment, cyber-attack their Internet access to death, and target for assassinatation any member of Assad's inner circle who shows his face in public. The point that chemical weapon use is off-limits and that it's never worth using them--if for no other reason than the severity of the punishment for so using--hasn't been properly hammered home yet.

In theory I agree that more drastic steps should be taken to stop atrocities like these, though in practice it's difficult to do much unless the UN are united not only in name but also in their position on the issue, which they really really aren't. I'd also prefer to wait on the results of the investigation before doing anything rash (even if it's kind of too late already), as either Assad is very stupid or something else is going on?

Like really, in March the US announced that they're going to withdraw troops from Syria soon, which would greatly help him and hurt the rebels. And now Assad does the only real thing that will prevent that withdrawal, thereby causing harm to himself. Why?

[Life]

On 4/14/2018 at 11:19 AM, Raptok said:

Assad used chemical weapons. This must have consequences. The use of those weapons is abhorrent, and their use cannot be normalised.

So Syrians killed Syrians so we must kill Syrians to stop Syrians from killing Syrians? Have I got that right?

I have my own feelings about it but I'm now worried about getting called up for miluim (reservist duty). And remember, this affects me far more than you guys because I actually need a semi-stable Syria on my border.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Life

[Raptok]

43 minutes ago, Life said:

So Syrians killed Syrians so we must kill Syrians to stop Syrians from killing Syrians? Have I got that right?

I have my own feelings about it but I'm now worried about getting called up for miluim (reservist duty). And remember, this affects me far more than you guys because I actually need a semi-stable Syria on my border.

The attacks were not designed to disable Syria, and should not be viewed as such. They were to degrade and damage the capability of the Assad regime in using chemical weapons, and to deter further uses. 

[The Roger The Paladin]

52 minutes ago, Life said:

So Syrians killed Syrians so we must kill Syrians to stop Syrians from killing Syrians? Have I got that right?

I have my own feelings about it but I'm now worried about getting called up for miluim (reservist duty). And remember, this affects me far more than you guys because I actually need a semi-stable Syria on my border.

Plot twist: Assad can't gas his people if they're all dead from carpet bombings.
 

[Sias]

Removed.

Edited April 17, 2018 by Sias