Syria - The balloon is going up

[ChewDawg]

The Syrian people get no R2P, eh?

Libya had oil And the government, until the foreign powers intervened, was about to attack populated Benghazi.

Syrian situation is predominantly in the country side or minor cities (Homs, Hama) with the government and minorities that run/support the regime (Alawites, Christians, Druze) controlling the intelligence services and Damascus/Aleppo (which has, until recently, only had sporadic fighting).

Maybe Obama doesn't care about a poor country with no valuable natural resources. Or he doesn't care about country folks, as he, at least in the US, seems to care more about city folk/blue state demographics.

No oil/doesn't want to attack cities run by minorities=very little/no action.

[ChewDawg]

Actually, the world's never been more peaceful. Seriously.

Just wait! Assad better look out!

Jesus. That's even more frightening than this old Atwater gem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRPZQ3UE ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVg8Ztn6sgg

[Tigerman]

Assad forces mull use of chemical weapons in Homs

That from Haaretz... And this from the French:

Six-day death toll in Homs blitz 'exceeds 400'

Horrifying. The Syrian people are crying for help!

[ChewDawg]

Every day, we are closer to World War 4. *sigh*

Surely we'll need a World War 3 first?

Many people consider the Cold War to have been WW3.

That's absurd.

It was Solzhenitsyn who said the Cold War was WWIII. Do you think he was absurd? The 2nd paragraph is really interesting. He's sees 1975 as the loss of WWIII by the West. Vietnam fell that year. So did Cambodia, Angola and Mozambique (or were in the process of falling).

When the Second World War followed on the heels of the First, the question that obsessed everyone was whether World War III would follow in turn. How many concessions and sacrifices were made to delay it, in the hope of perhaps avoiding it altogether?

But few have noticed, or have had the courage to admit, that World War III has already happened. It ended this year — with the free world defeated.

The seeds were planted as World War II ended, as the cowardly pens of Roosevelt and Churchill signed away Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Mongolia, condemned to death or to concentration camps millions of Soviet citizens, created an ineffectual United Nations Assembly, and finally abandoned Yugoslavia, Albania, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and East Germany.

World War III began not with an exchange of notes breaking off relations or with air raids. It began clandestinely: it insinuated itself into the world under the cover of pseudonyms: “democratic” change approved by 100 percent of the population; cold war; peaceful coexistence; normalization; realpolitik; détente. Trying to avoid World War III, the West permitted it, allowed it to devastate and enslave 20 countries, and to change the face of the earth.

ALEKSANDR I. SOLZHENITSYN received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. He died in 2008.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/opini ... tsyn1.html

[fred smith]

Hundreds of thousands protesting all over the world when America moved to remove a dictator who had killed millions and had the equivalent of a thousand guantanamos and now our principled leftists cannot marshall 1000 or even 100 or even 10 to protest assad? And remember all those whose precious sensibilities led them to squeal with outrage over renditions and then ... Silence on obamas killing without trial. I think we all now understand what motivated them. What motivates me to write this is CONTEMPT.

[fred smith]

Cold comfort cold graves? Really jaboney? That would be cute if I were the one who claimed to be so concerned about human rights. Reminds me of the convenient preelection lancet study claiming 600000 deaths after the American invasion yet here we are years later with 115000. How many more people would have doed in Iraq if oil for foos and saddam had remained? Cold comfort? Would have to be if people like you spouting shit like this can sleep at night? And where are you and your posse on obamas KILLINGS? Strange principles you and your ilk CLAIM to have.

[Jaboney]

Posted on Obama's war crimes elsewhere.

So, you're concerned with neither human rights nor American lives? Ok.

[jdsmith]

So, you're concerned with neither human rights nor American lives? Ok.

huh

How do you pull that rabbit from fred's post?

Actually, the world's never been more peaceful. Seriously.

Isn't that kind of like saying there haven't been many earthquakes in Taichung after 921?

[Jaboney]

So, you're concerned with neither human rights nor American lives? Ok.

huh

How do you pull that rabbit from fred's post?

By the ears.
Fred disclaimed overmuch interest in the first: check.
States support for a failed policy ("set back") that cost several thousand American lives (people who would not have otherwise died) and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives (people who might have) because *ahem* the (only?) alternative was continuing to follow another discredited, failed policy... and comforts himself that he doesn't need 100% delivery on expectations to remain principled in his views and motivations. Translation: "Whao! We really screwed the pooch that time. Well, it could have been worse... no need to change my ideas just because things didn't work out." He's putting ideology before fact, and privileging his principles over soldiers' lives. Better to have been right, or at least cautious, to begin with; failing that, better a serious re-think now.

Actually, the world's never been more peaceful. Seriously.

Isn't that kind of like saying there haven't been many earthquakes in Taichung after 921?

That might not be a bad analogy.
Most conflicts now are relatively low-intensity, intrastate affairs. They drag on and disrupt a lot of lives, but they're not nearly as violent or destructive as open conflict between states. Over the last century, such conflicts have arisen in the aftermath of larger events... they're the rumbles that follow The Big One.

[jdsmith]

Actually, the world's never been more peaceful. Seriously.

Isn't that kind of like saying there haven't been many earthquakes in Taichung after 921?

That might not be a bad analogy.
Most conflicts now are relatively low-intensity, intrastate affairs. They drag on and disrupt a lot of lives, but they're not nearly as violent or destructive as open conflict between states. Over the last century, such conflicts have arisen in the aftermath of larger events... they're the rumbles that follow The Big One.

Smaller and deadlier has been coming since the early 90s though (see War and Anti-War).

However, this strategy is dangerous, more dangerous imho than all out open and in yo face warfare simply because nearly anyone can do it.

Israel is good at blowing people up in Iran , the US is good at smokin out the terrists, Russia is good at poisoning people overseas; if and most probably when one of these immensely wealthy oily nations puts a undercover Bedouin Camel team together, the doo will hit the paddlefan and the result...all out open in yo face warfare.

I think this is largey the reason no one wants in the Syrian/Iranian clusterfuck. When you do you might as well put this on your head: