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General Discussion => The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit => Topic started by: gatoveintisiete on December 15, 2016, 08:44:39 AM
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I disconnected from paying attention years ago, why did we get involved, what was the result, and what kind of shitstorm does 45 face?
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Emphasis on cliff notes, no article links or page long diatribes please, not interested in reading mountains of garbage here.
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I think we half assed some funding of some rebel groups a few years back.
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Whats Allepo?
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It's a disaster, according to some guy that likes to say disaster a lot.
That seems like more of a bullet point than a cliff note tho.
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Why don't we use nuclear weapons if we have them?
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Why don't we use nuclear weapons if we have them?
Turn wide areas into glass should always be at least in the top 3 options.
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Syria may be one of the stupidest foreign policy moves ever.
Relative to the United States alone, let's just say that the NYT's (when they actually do real reporting and practice real journalism) concluded a few years ago that every group the US was supporting in trying to overthrow Assad was embedded with theocratic zealots. At one time "rebel" groups armed by the CIA were fighting rebel groups armed by the DOD.
That's pretty much all you need to know in terms of what a complete CF it is.
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Nyt? That's fake news! What's infowars have to say about it?
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Civil war. Brutal like all civil wars. A side is trying to win at all cost. War is killing. Rebels are hiding in populated areas. War.is not.precision. our own civil war was horrendous. Why should be.expect anything different elsewhere?
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Syria is lose lose for us. Either help a sadamesque leader maintain power or feed money and weapons to one or more multiples of groups that are all small step (s) away from being sympathetic to another group we are currently at war with. And that is all before even considering the Russia angle.
We lose less by doing nothing.
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Syria may be one of the stupidest foreign policy moves ever.
Relative to the United States alone, let's just say that the NYT's (when they actually do real reporting and practice real journalism) concluded a few years ago that every group the US was supporting in trying to overthrow Assad was embedded with theocratic zealots. At one time "rebel" groups armed by the CIA were fighting rebel groups armed by the DOD.
That's pretty much all you need to know in terms of what a complete CF it is.
looks like I could have saved some time and just pm'd Dax. Thanks bud, mods you can close this one out now.
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Nyt? That's fake news! What's infowars have to say about it?
Weird post (but LOL in the middle of a online NYT news article, was a fake news headline the other day . . . Alec Baldwin is dead FYI).
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Well the president of the country bombed hospitals and dax referred to this as the people being liberated, so there's that.
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Well the president of the country bombed hospitals and dax referred to this as the people being liberated, so there's that.
We bombed guys who were fighting ISIS in Syria. Of course you won't answer the question as to why the eff we (and our proxies) are trying to overthrow the government of a sovereign nation in the first place. By implication, you're saying that the people trying to overthrow the government are good people, when in fact they're thugs who have committed countless numbers of atrocities in their own right. If the Assad regime is toppled, Syria will be an even bigger bloodbath then it is now and will likely lead to either years of additional sectarian violence between rival Islamic groups, or likely lead to a highly theocratic (like tossing gay people off of rooftops) government being installed into power.
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Well the president of the country bombed hospitals and dax referred to this as the people being liberated, so there's that.
We bombed guys who were fighting ISIS in Syria. Of course you won't answer the question as to why the eff we (and our proxies) are trying to overthrow the government of a sovereign nation in the first place. By implication, you're saying that the people trying to overthrow the government are good people, when in fact they're thugs who have committed countless numbers of atrocities in their own right. If the Assad regime is toppled, Syria will be an even bigger bloodbath then it is now and will likely lead to either years of additional sectarian violence between rival Islamic groups, or likely lead to a highly theocratic (like tossing gay people off of rooftops) government being installed into power.
I'm not answering that question because it is 100% irrelevant to what I care about. The "war" is comprised of the Syrian government killing a bunch of women and children because they can't exactly pin down who the enemy is. On Wednesday when the Turkish government freed 3000 women and children from Aleppo the Syrian government fired on the caravan. I don't give two shits about whether or not Assad defeats ISIS, I mean I did care until Assad determined genocide was the key to victory. You're talking politics as if there's a correct answer, I don't care about politics, I care about the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
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Amaze
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Yeah, I guess I don't really care who brought about this humanitarian crisis either Dax, its about the women and children now.....
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Yeah, I guess I don't really care who brought about this humanitarian crisis either Dax, its about the women and children now.....
Blame who you want, I don't give a crap.
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Classic, so now it's about the women and children. Yeah who gave a eff when all the women and children were dying back when Obama, Leon P and Hillary glommed all over the Arab Spring movement in Syria and decided to use proxies and the CIA to overthrow the Syrian regime creating the "greatest humanitarian crisis since WWII".
Yet here we are, not one serious movement by the Obama administration to bring peace, only talk of making sure the government (that's a Russian ally) gets overthrown. But hey, now all of sudden the resident libs are "worried about the women and children" after 5 rough ridin' years.
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Has a political party ever been more exposed and humiliated in our nations history?
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I mean I don't know about the other "libs" you speak of, but on this blog the only Syria conversations I can remember are ones when people are talking about the humanitarian angle then you thunder in with some long winded partisan rant filled with dax catchphrases.
I see your frustration that no one will engage the political conversation though. The closest I'll get is to say unfortunately there is no right answer. There's nothing the United States, Russia, or the UN can do to fix this. Best solution is for Assad to get assassinated and hope that there is a Democratic election that doesn't elect another murderous despot or that allows ISIS to control Syria.
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We tend to pick and choose when to be humanitarian and the decision-point is usually an economic one. :th_twocents:
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We tend to pick and choose when to be humanitarian and the decision-point is usually an economic one. :th_twocents:
Historical precedent does not support this.
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We tend to pick and choose when to be humanitarian and the decision-point is usually an economic one. :th_twocents:
Historical precedent does not support this.
How has the U.S. provided real humanitarian aid in an equitable way even in the last 100 years? How many humanitarian crises exist and have existed that are simply outside of our frame of reference because there is little or no economic interest in the people/country experiencing crisis? I would add, political expedience and motivation are part and parcel of the economic interests. How does the U.S. choose whom to provide with aid?
I would like to hear your ideas as to how we haven't historically chosen when to be humanitarian based on economic interests (and I know I'm late adding political/geopolitical interests). I'm asking seriously because I can learn in the process. Maybe it's cynical of me but I think the U.S. government is most bipartisan when it comes to provision of aid. We tend not to do it unless it benefits us in some discernable way, short- or long-term. Social Exchange Theory at its best. And I believe this is not unique to the U.S.
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I thought we learned that when you topple dictators in the Middle East that you create power vacuums that tend to make the countries more unstable and don't necessarily breed democracies, so why arm rebels against Assad in the first place?
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Yeah, you added the political/geopolitical interest that brings me much closer to agreeing with you. We have never ever ever made a humanitarian decision based solely or even mostly based on economics. I actually the scale of the atrocities being committed matters a lot as well. The rest of the world had the luxury the last couple of years of hiding behind the political complexities of not getting involved in the humanitarian efforts but that's becoming much harder to do. You can certainly point to other atrocities around the world that we have ignored and you can make the claim that economics are the motivation not to get involved but I'm not that cynical. There are several issues in Africa you can point to that we didn't get involved in but I think that's more about the Somalian failure than anything else.
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I thought we learned that when you topple dictators in the Middle East that you create power vacuums that tend to make the countries more unstable and don't necessarily breed democracies, so why arm rebels against Assad in the first place?
In fairness those two things happened almost simultaneously. Assad was gassing his own people and we tried something, it clearly didn't work. That's my frustration with dax not wanting to do anything but shove this down our throats, no one is arguing that we did the right thing in Syria.
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Do you believe Sryrian people would be in better shape if we had not got involved?
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Yeah, you added the political/geopolitical interest that brings me much closer to agreeing with you. We have never ever ever made a humanitarian decision based solely or even mostly based on economics. I actually the scale of the atrocities being committed matters a lot as well. The rest of the world had the luxury the last couple of years of hiding behind the political complexities of not getting involved in the humanitarian efforts but that's becoming much harder to do. You can certainly point to other atrocities around the world that we have ignored and you can make the claim that economics are the motivation not to get involved but I'm not that cynical. There are several issues in Africa you can point to that we didn't get involved in but I think that's more about the Somalian failure than anything else.
Thanks for the response. I suppose I'm a bit more cynical, especially regarding the situations in Africa which you raised.
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Yeah, you added the political/geopolitical interest that brings me much closer to agreeing with you. We have never ever ever made a humanitarian decision based solely or even mostly based on economics. I actually the scale of the atrocities being committed matters a lot as well. The rest of the world had the luxury the last couple of years of hiding behind the political complexities of not getting involved in the humanitarian efforts but that's becoming much harder to do. You can certainly point to other atrocities around the world that we have ignored and you can make the claim that economics are the motivation not to get involved but I'm not that cynical. There are several issues in Africa you can point to that we didn't get involved in but I think that's more about the Somalian failure than anything else.
Thanks for the response. I suppose I'm a bit more cynical, especially regarding the situations in Africa which you raised.
I think some of the issues in Africa in some ways mirror what's happening in Syria. There's no defined good v. evil and it's a whole lot of innocent people paying the price. In Africa it's usually a "democratically elected" regime against some rogue warlord kidnapping boys to fight against the army.
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Anybody - particularly diplomat, politician, or journalist - who read this 25 years ago and thought Syria of the last 3-4 years would be any different is just a dumb ass.
Hama Rules: From Beirut to Jerusalem:Friedman (https://books.google.com/books?id=877DR3un9rIC&pg=PT103&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false)
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I mean I don't know about the other "libs" you speak of, but on this blog the only Syria conversations I can remember are ones when people are talking about the humanitarian angle then you thunder in with some long winded partisan rant filled with dax catchphrases.
I see your frustration that no one will engage the political conversation though. The closest I'll get is to say unfortunately there is no right answer. There's nothing the United States, Russia, or the UN can do to fix this. Best solution is for Assad to get assassinated and hope that there is a Democratic election that doesn't elect another murderous despot or that allows ISIS to control Syria.
The reason it's unfixable is because the only course of action the US has sought since day one is regime change. No you can continue to spew your partisan deflection bullshit while avoiding reality all day long. But that doesn't change the fact that this war exists because of the United States and its surrogates want it to be this way.
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I mean I don't know about the other "libs" you speak of, but on this blog the only Syria conversations I can remember are ones when people are talking about the humanitarian angle then you thunder in with some long winded partisan rant filled with dax catchphrases.
I see your frustration that no one will engage the political conversation though. The closest I'll get is to say unfortunately there is no right answer. There's nothing the United States, Russia, or the UN can do to fix this. Best solution is for Assad to get assassinated and hope that there is a Democratic election that doesn't elect another murderous despot or that allows ISIS to control Syria.
The reason it's unfixable is because the only course of action the US has sought since day one is regime change. No you can continue to spew your partisan deflection bullshit while avoiding reality all day long. But that doesn't change the fact that this war exists because of the United States and its surrogates want it to be this way.
That's stupid and you know it, just shut the eff up, I'm tired of reading your nonsense. At least fsd is entertaining, you're a dumb ass angry old troll.
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the alternate histories propagated on this sub-forum at times defy comprehension. the united states is not an all-powerful colossus bestriding the world, nor does the rest of the world sit in stupor awaiting our direction. we can at times nudge events here and there, but we do not control. we generally deserve less credit and less blame than we seem to prefer to think.
this short piece outlines well how little we have done in syria. despite how poorly events have unfolded, i'm not sure i agree that we should have done more.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/aleppos-fall-is-obamas-failure/2016/12/15/5af72640-c30f-11e6-9a51-cd56ea1c2bb7_story.html?utm_term=.b04e713a4359
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:lol: some people can't handle this thread
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I mean I don't know about the other "libs" you speak of, but on this blog the only Syria conversations I can remember are ones when people are talking about the humanitarian angle then you thunder in with some long winded partisan rant filled with dax catchphrases.
I see your frustration that no one will engage the political conversation though. The closest I'll get is to say unfortunately there is no right answer. There's nothing the United States, Russia, or the UN can do to fix this. Best solution is for Assad to get assassinated and hope that there is a Democratic election that doesn't elect another murderous despot or that allows ISIS to control Syria.
The reason it's unfixable is because the only course of action the US has sought since day one is regime change. No you can continue to spew your partisan deflection bullshit while avoiding reality all day long. But that doesn't change the fact that this war exists because of the United States and its surrogates want it to be this way.
That's stupid and you know it, just shut the eff up, I'm tired of reading your nonsense. At least fsd is entertaining, you're a dumb ass angry old troll.
Yes, it is completely worthless to engage someone who reads a couple of headlines and thinks he knows WTF is going on. The fact that you can't bring yourself to realize that the U.S. (and Saudis-Jordan-UAE, NATO partners and others) have propagated and expanded the nightmare in Syria, and have made virtually no overtures for peace tells me all I need to know.
The training program, which in 2013 began directly arming the rebels under the code name Timber Sycamore, is run by the C.I.A. and several Arab intelligence services and aimed at building up forces opposing President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. The United States and Saudi Arabia are the biggest contributors, with the Saudis contributing both weapons and large sums of money, and with C.I.A. paramilitary operatives taking the lead in training the rebels to use Kalashnikovs, mortars, antitank guided missiles and other weapons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/27/world/middleeast/cia-arms-for-syrian-rebels-supplied-black-market-officials-say.html?_r=0
When President Obama secretly authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to begin arming Syria’s embattled rebels in 2013, the spy agency knew it would have a willing partner to help pay for the covert operation. It was the same partner the C.I.A. has relied on for decades for money and discretion in far-off conflicts: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Since then, the C.I.A. and its Saudi counterpart have maintained an unusual arrangement for the rebel-training mission, which the Americans have code-named Timber Sycamore. Under the deal, current and former administration officials said, the Saudis contribute both weapons and large sums of money, and the C.I.A takes the lead in training the rebels on AK-47 assault rifles and tank-destroying missiles.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/world/middleeast/us-relies-heavily-on-saudi-money-to-support-syrian-rebels.html
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http://www.salon.com/2015/05/28/the_benghazi_outrage_we_actually_should_be_talking_about/
Overthrow one government, "watch" (yeah, just "watch) the old regimes weapons be shipped off to use for another regime change.
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This rough ridin' moron keeps arguing for a point I've yet to argue against. Get a hobby, shitbird.
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This rough ridin' moron keeps arguing for a point I've yet to argue against. Get a hobby, shitbird.
:lol:
Then WTF is your point besides your sudden concern for the "women and children" of Syria and the fact that your just a partisan dumbass who can't handle any criticism of Obama?
Just say NO to regime changes and unending wars: Unless Barrack Obama is President
It must be fantastic to know (or in your case be too rough ridin' dumb to know) that Obama is just carrying forth the plans of the Pentagon who targeted Syria (and Libya) as one of seven countries (Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, Syria, Libya) that the United States targeted for regime change shortly after 9-11 (Hey look at that, Barrack got 1 and is trying like hell to get 2 out of the 7).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01f4ZXk2TG4
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/15/west-ignored-russian-offer-in-2012-to-have-syrias-assad-step-aside
Russia proposed more than three years ago that Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, could step down as part of a peace deal, according to a senior negotiator involved in back-channel discussions at the time.
Former Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari said western powers failed to seize on the proposal. Since it was made, in 2012, tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions uprooted, causing the world’s gravest refugee crisis since the second world war.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/civilians-killed-rebels-shell-government-held-aleppo-685601309
But not a peep out of MIR, who is now all of sudden concerned about the "women and children" because in reality he can't handle any criticism of Obama.
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Anybody - particularly diplomat, politician, or journalist - who read this 25 years ago and thought Syria of the last 3-4 years would be any different is just a dumb ass.
Hama Rules: From Beirut to Jerusalem:Friedman (https://books.google.com/books?id=877DR3un9rIC&pg=PT103&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false)
Good read.
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Maybe this should go in the Obama legacy thread. Rany thinks he made a blunder that cost millions of lives not intervening in the biggest humanitarian crisis in years.
https://theringer.com/syria-barack-obama-legacy-853644abdd1b#.gt2wcz958 (https://theringer.com/syria-barack-obama-legacy-853644abdd1b#.gt2wcz958)
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To think that we started this regime change would be incorrect.
Whether we assisted too much or too little is largely up to personal biases and politics.
Assad is a brutal dictator who has pursued genocide against his people.
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To think that we started this regime change would be incorrect.
Whether we assisted too much or too little is largely up to personal biases and politics.
Assad is a brutal dictator who has pursued genocide against his people.
No one has said we started this regime change, but we firmly placed ourselves back in the business of regime change (once again) once Hillary-Panetta-Obama thought they saw an opening. A blind person could see that a post regime change Syria would be a worse bloodbath then the actual regime change itself . . . which has been awful in it's own right. Even more stunning is the faux incredulous reaction by the U.S. (and others) that Russia is standing by their client state. As if we'd just stand by and watch Russian backed militants overthrow, say, the regime in the UAE.
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without further research my general recollection is that most of our support for regime change occurred prior to Russia's formal involvement
by the time Russia joined the fray it seemed we had moved more towards the balance of supporting the Kurds against DAESH and pacifying Turkey about this support