Syria

[Partha]

Ask them WHY they want a war with Syria and at base you always end up with Michael Ledeen's comment:

"Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business,"

Decade since invasion of Iraq, and they've all got the 10 year itch.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

"Red Line" = "Mission Accomplished"; Meaning, Republicans will defend Mission accomplished, but throw mud at Obama over "Red line" and vise versa.

[Ddrak]

So some pundits and politicians would prefer Obama to throw away the lives of US soldiers in a stupid invasion than to act sanely on Syria? Some people have no respect for the armed forces or the volunteers that serve.

Dd

[Harlowe]

It's true, some have absolutely ZERO consideration let alone concern for what that means in US servicemen lives. I hope Obama involves us as little as humanly possible in that mess.

[Partha]

It's true, some have absolutely ZERO consideration let alone concern for what that means in US servicemen lives. I hope Obama involves us as little as humanly possible in that mess.

Remember, Bush was in a champagne unit in Vietnam, and his advisers all managed to miss that one through multiple deferments. So did the cheerleaders like Rush 'pilonidal cyst' Limbaugh and Ted 'Shit My Pants' Nugent.

The military is only useful to them as a political weapon.

[Embar Angylwrath]

How's that work for McCain, Partha? Does being held captive and tortured give him more street cred, than let's say, oh, Obama, who to my knowledge has had no military service?

[Ddrak]

How's that work for McCain, Partha? Does being held captive and tortured give him more street cred, than let's say, oh, Obama, who to my knowledge has had no military service?

I would say "No" right now given his hawkish attitude on Syria. He frankly doesn't give a shit about US servicemen, whose lives are just a political tool for him now.

Dd

[Kulaf]

How's that work for McCain, Partha? Does being held captive and tortured give him more street cred, than let's say, oh, Obama, who to my knowledge has had no military service?

I would say "No" right now given his hawkish attitude on Syria. He frankly doesn't give a shit about US servicemen, whose lives are just a political tool for him now.

Dd

I haven't read any statements by McCain that seeks to put boots on he ground in Syria. He has asked whether the US could enforce a no fly zone and whether our assets in the area could interdict Syrian air power.

What other "hawkish" statements are you referring to? And I think saying that McCain doesn't give a shit about servicemen is just rediculous.

[Ddrak]

McCain has regularly called for air cover. You're right that he's saying "no boots on the ground", but if you think establishing air superiority is without risk and without more significant escalation probabilities then I think you're living in a fantasy.

Adding to that, McCain advocates staying in Afghanistan much longer than most others do, is big on military escalation with Iran and pretty much wants to go play boom boom with anyone else that looks at him askance. I'd call that playing fast and loose with servicemen, yes.

Dd

[Partha]

McCain's public personality has changed a lot, and for the worse, since that failed Presidential run. Notice how rarely he smiles anymore.

I don't think he's the guy who wrote Faith Of My Fathers anymore.

[Massterloo]

I giggled a lot at "street cred".

[Kulaf]

I think McCain is correctly pointing out that the President sort of pained us into a corner by making the "red line" statement. And now the international community is wondering what is on the other side of said line. Do nothing, and look like the US is ineffectual and weak........or do something and place service men in potential danger.

[Ddrak]

I think they're overplaying the comment for political gain. Obama (correctly) pointed out that the use of chemical weapons would certainly be a trigger for re-evaluation of US policy in the area. I didn't take the comment as "we sniff Sarin in the area and we're gonna land Marines".

Dd

[Kulaf]

I think they're overplaying the comment for political gain. Obama (correctly) pointed out that the use of chemical weapons would certainly be a trigger for re-evaluation of US policy in the area. I didn't take the comment as "we sniff Sarin in the area and we're gonna land Marines".

Dd

Well if not, how does one reconcile the actions taken against Lybia?

[Ddrak]

Well if not, how does one reconcile the actions taken against Lybia?

Different situations call for different evaluations?

Dd

[Kulaf]

The other issue to consider is that we have a NATO member bordering Syria who is insisting that Syrian forces are crossing the border and attacking within their national boundaries. Turkey also seems a little confused as to where the red line is......and more importantly what will transpire when it is crossed.

[Embar Angylwrath]

And that is exactly the reason why the leader of the world's last superpower can't just throw out those words and then back away from them. When the admin clarifications include "chain of custody", you know they are in full on "what the fuck do we do now?" It's not the Repblicans that said those words, it was Obama. He was the one using it for political gain, only fair for others to rightly question what the hell he meant by them.

Doesn't help that the WH leaked to a newspaper or two that the "red line" statement was unscripted (probably something that helped Harlowe form her opinion), but I guess the didn't tell Carney, who was at the podium the next day refuting the White House's own leak.

On another mid-east cluster, looks like Benghazi is breaking wide open. I can't beleive Carney is sticking woith his story that only one word was changed in the talking points when clearly they went through 12 revisions and were scrubbed of the terrorist-related words. His twist, if I can follow his convoluted explanation... the person who made that particular change only changed one word, so therefore there was only a one word edit to the talking points. The other 12.. well, you'll have to talk to the people who wrote them.

[Ddrak]

I don't see what he backed away from? In terms of foreign policy, the meaningless partisan parsing and mindless stupidity on simple shit like this is hurting the US a metric fuckton more than any perceived ambiguity. What might have been a fairly trivial sentence in a fairly trivial context is now blown up into serious questions on the nation's ability to do anything without second guessing the hell out of itself.

What the rest of the world sees: Obama said the US would get a bit worried about WMDs (which was stating the obvious anyway). Some minor WMD-ish stuff pops up on the radar. World goes "whatever". The US goes into a full on internal hissy fit over whether it should be worried or not. Rest of the world thinks "wtf! And we trust them inside our borders?".

Same shit with Benghazi. Shit happens. Administration is clearly avoiding making a big deal and carefully parsing statements to avoid antagonism. Rest of world goes "Fair 'nuff - time for that later". US goes full on mental about not calling a spade a spade when no one's sure if it's a suit in cards or a thing for digging. Rest of the world thinks "wtf! And we trust them inside our borders?".

The ONLY think this partisan malarkey is doing is making allies nervous and enemies bold. /golfclap.

Dd

[Harlowe]

On another mid-east cluster, looks like Benghazi is breaking wide open.

You're seriously going Benghazi on this? For fuck's sake it's a ploy to hurt the Dem brand-name, and more importantly to the desperate GOP, Hillary's 2016 chances.

[Embar Angylwrath]

@Dd - The words "red line" are used to create an image of a line that must not be crossed without completely changing the dynamic. So what has changed? I'm not saying we should put boots on the ground over there, that's another discussion entirely. What I'm saying is the President used a phrase (several times, and from several different parts of his administration), to indicate the US would change it's engagement policy if the Assad regime used chemical weapons.

The regime then used those weapons, and caught the administration with its pants down with no real response other than word parsing. There is understandably confusion in the world community (Russia, Turkey, Israel, etc.) by the US's non-response to the use of the weapons. The PResident would have been better off, and the US would have been better off, if he said "If chemical weapons are used by any side, we will evaluate it and respond accordingly". But no, he thumped the chest of Amercia, and used some pretty hard rhetoric.

@Harlowe - Yeah, I'm going Benghazi. The WH is on full-on spin control right now because many of the initial statements they made were simply untrue. Do you disagree with that statement?