Quote :

"WTF is Obama waiting for??? Let's beat the shit out of Syria and tell Iran to bring it. They're fucking with our boys in Turkey, they're fucking with our boys in Israel. They're using chemical weapons. They've killed god knows how many innocent people by now. Leader saying fuck you all I ain't giving up and hasn't for a long time so far. Like it or not we are the defenders of the free world. I'm fine with it because that's how I know we're the best. Enough is enough."

obligatory "this is real life and not a fucking video game"

cost/benefit and whatnot

5/11/2013 1:41:15 PM

Quote :

"Israel should go in and set up a government in Syria."

You went full retard. You never go full retard.

5/11/2013 1:47:57 PM

Syriasly

5/11/2013 3:43:19 PM

Outrage at Syrian rebel shown 'eating soldier's heart'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22519770

Quote :

"A video which appears to show a Syrian rebel taking a bite from the heart of a dead soldier has been widely condemned. US-based Human Rights Watch identified the rebel as Abu Sakkar, a well-known insurgent from the city of Homs, and said his actions were a war crime. The main Syrian opposition coalition said he would be put on trial. The video, which cannot be independently authenticated, seems to show him cutting out the heart. "I swear to God we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog," the man says, referring to President Bashar al-Assad as he stands over the soldier's corpse. "

5/15/2013 8:01:30 AM

Hmmm... Sounds like the Liberians have been training Syrian rebels again.

5/16/2013 11:26:43 AM

Damn... say goodbye to syria. If it wasnt kinds obvious that it was becoming the next iraq, this nails it.

WARNING: video shows 2 beheadings with a small knife in full graphic detail.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=alCsFKyAZR8

Story: http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=51537

6/30/2013 9:16:39 PM

Savages fighting a ruthless dictator. The situation has been this bloody for years now; these beheadings are nothing new. It makes the case to provide them with weapons very difficult. Nothing short of a complete invasion and decades of occupation by a more civilized nation can resolve the situation now. Not it.

6/30/2013 9:50:55 PM

Quote :

"http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/syria-behind-the-lines/"

I just watched this the other night. It was very well done. Pretty heavy shit.

8/1/2013 10:16:37 PM

Say goodbye to Syria, say hello to Afghanistan II

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/syria-rebel-council-bans-croissants_n_3690732.html

8/2/2013 12:19:02 AM

I was cool with beheading women, but this is JUST TOO MUCH!

8/2/2013 12:35:49 AM

Opposition claiming at least 1,300 dead in a chemical attack

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2013/0821/Syrian-opposition-alleges-another-chemical-weapon-attack-by-Assad

8/21/2013 11:09:14 AM

Good thing our piece of shit President didn't act on his laughable red line.

8/21/2013 9:45:24 PM

it was a dumb thing for him to say, but I'd rather have a president say a dumb thing and not act on it as opposed to a president acting on questionable (at best) evidence

[Edited on August 21, 2013 at 11:37 PM. Reason : that's better]

8/21/2013 11:34:44 PM

or maybe he is waiting for the weapons inspectors, who are already in Syria, to determine if it was real. then intelligence agencies need to determine who did it. Russia's comment that it doesn't make sense for Syria to do it right now because they are already winning in that region (and because there are weapons inspectors in the country) is actually a decent point to consider.

did we really learn nothing from the last time we went to war over chemical or biological weapons?

8/22/2013 10:35:16 AM

It is a complete clusterfuck. There is absolutely no way we could cleanly be involved in this. You have Assad's regime and you have Al Qaeda types mixed in with the rebels. It is essentially too late now. The shit is out of the horse as if we were to get involved in deposing Assad that would have had to happen early on before the infusion of Islamist insurgents. There really is no viable solution (aside from the fact we have already been at war in the Middle East for over a decade for minimal gain).

8/22/2013 11:22:50 AM

Sarin gas...why is humanity hell-bent on destroying itself?

8/23/2013 11:40:36 PM

^^ agreed.

Medecins Sans Frontieres says the thousands they have treated had symptoms consistent with a neurotoxic agent attack. Some 3,600 patients arrived on a single day, and 10% of them died.

MSF-backed hospitals treated Syria 'chemical victims'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23827950

This is a very nice report about the main refugee camp in Jordan with lots of stats and graphics.

Zaatari refugee camp: The children living in limbo
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23801200

8/24/2013 3:34:56 PM

This is a good read http://news.yahoo.com/syria-warns-us-not-intervene-militarily-203541382.html

The Syrian military is saying the rebels used the chemicals, and they have given explicit accounts of when and where their soldiers suffered the attacks. They are also saying they found stashes of canisters and gas masks when they took over a contested part of Damascus and the rebels retreated. Link above has a picture of seized canisters and gas makes.

Of course, it is in their advantage to lie, but so is it in the advantage of the rebels to lie.

So, as usual, we will probably never come to know who did the chemical attack. We should be wary of believing the side of the rebels just because they are the good guys, supposedly. History is full of examples of supposedly good sides doing bad stuff and blaming it on the bad guys.

8/24/2013 9:38:44 PM

Yeah, its all privateering at this point. Plausible deniability on both ends.

8/24/2013 9:44:49 PM

^^ I view it more as "bad guys" and "worse guys".

I think some shit's gonna go down soon, though.

If it was me, I think I'd TLAM the SA-5 sites, assuming I could work out private assurance with the Russians that they wouldn't sell them SA-20 (or anything else in the S-300 family). I'd like to get rid of those anyway, and as a significant peeling back of the air defenses, it would send the message that shit would get severe if they use WMD again.

8/26/2013 9:47:52 AM

Why does the UK, France, Russia, etc feel entitled to stick their noses in this?

8/26/2013 12:58:31 PM

The same reason any country does; it furthers their own interests.

8/26/2013 12:59:18 PM

You're right; nerve gas rules.

8/26/2013 2:14:34 PM

Sorry for the double post, but it looks like you guys can quit denying it happened / debating who did it.

Also the red line comment never happened. Got it?

8/26/2013 4:04:48 PM

Credible or not, there's this:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/08/is-u-s-launching-a-war-in-syria-to-distract-from-spying-and-other-scandals.html

8/26/2013 7:09:31 PM

like it or not those missiles have to be used somewhere or else the government won't be able to write more defensive contracts.

8/26/2013 7:12:04 PM

^^ If so, the US upped their warmongering game if barely. Plant the WMDs, and when inspectors actually find something this time, that may be enough to distract the public from realizing just how much this wreaks of the last war.

Yeah, we need a NU4N policy.

8/26/2013 10:09:43 PM

why can 100,000 people die from conventional weapons and its ok but 1300 die from chemical weapons and OMG WE MUST STOP THE KILLING.

8/26/2013 10:23:25 PM

There are no good guys here, in fact it is a complete shit show. The Rebels are now clouded with radical Islamists and Al Qaeda types, and on the other is the Assad Regime. The chemical attack could have easily been a set up by the rebels to lure us into the conflict. As said above nobody will ever know for sure. Yet another Middle Eastern war we will be getting involved in that won't go well. .

8/26/2013 10:43:12 PM

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/syria-the-true-chaos-will-begin-after-the-fall-of-the-regime

8/26/2013 11:45:18 PM

^Excellent read and likely accurate unfortunately.

[Edited on August 27, 2013 at 5:03 AM. Reason : .]

8/27/2013 5:03:17 AM

Quote :

"why can 100,000 people die from conventional weapons and its ok but 1300 die from chemical weapons and OMG WE MUST STOP THE KILLING."

troll hall of fame material?

8/27/2013 9:37:29 AM

Answer the question, if you can.

8/27/2013 9:44:33 AM

call me callous but I see no reason why we can't just let people half a world away kill each other. Its not like people haven't been fighting over the same plot of land for >5000 years anyway and frankly I see no way our interests are greatly served better getting involved than not.

I mean if the UN voted to send in a force like during the baltic wars or in Africa that's something I could get behind, but its not like there's any benefit for going in and spending all this money doing it ourselves just to be hated for it.

8/27/2013 10:37:49 AM

Quote :

"Answer the question, if you can."

Did 100,000 people die from conventional weapons in a single day from a single attack?

8/27/2013 10:48:28 AM

Why does it matter how quickly they are killed?

8/27/2013 10:56:27 AM

ok so as long as the target is small then chemical/bio/nuclear weapons are fair game now?

all that matters is numbers and not methods.

thats what im gathering here.

8/27/2013 11:06:55 AM

God I hope we find out that the rebels used the weapons. We really don't need another war on our hands, and Obama/Hagel are completely outmatched here, going up against Putin.

Shit, Hagel can barely form complete, coherent sentences.

8/27/2013 11:09:11 AM

i also feel that chem/bio weapons are worse, but can't justify it logically. my position is based on emotion that I can't justify, i think its a worthwhile point for discussion.

[Edited on August 27, 2013 at 11:10 AM. Reason : ^ rolleyes]

8/27/2013 11:09:46 AM

Why rolleyes? Because I'm against interference in something that we shouldn't be sticking our nose in?

I'm all for maintaining humanitarian aid for the refugees and civilians, but there is no good outcome for us in this if we go the militant route.

8/27/2013 11:53:50 AM

Quote :

"Did 100,000 people die from conventional weapons in a single day from a single attack?"

That is sickening that you would even say that.

Translation of what you said: "As long as conventional weapons are used, resulting in 100 to 150 deaths daily across the country in multiple attacks, no problem, even if it leads to the death of 10 million eventually. But as soon as a WMD is used even once and kills several hundred to a thousand in one attack in one day, that's it, that crosses a line, and the regime is a fair target now of international US military action."

Agreed with theDuke866 and eyewall41 with regards to there being no good guys here, at least not now. Yes, when it started, the rebels were good guys, but now it is not just one group any more, but a collection of groups, some of whom are know Sunni extremist/terrorist groups.

8/27/2013 11:54:51 AM

oh so you care about numbers and speed, but again, not methods.

interesting.

8/27/2013 12:12:48 PM

where do you draw the line? 1 person killed a day? a dozen? a hundred? a thousand?

8/27/2013 12:25:22 PM

You draw the line at your border. And you stay behind it.

8/27/2013 12:36:47 PM

What if it's a country that your country completely relies on for food/oil/products? What if chaos in the region would have a significant impact inside your own borders?

8/27/2013 12:38:26 PM

I guess I have to be selfish here and say that doesn't really apply to the US in the context of Syria.

Just like that article above states, there is no good outcome here. Either we get involved, topple the current regime and let multiple factions war it out over who takes over and piss off Russia in the process, or just take a backseat and let them figure it out themselves. Or hell, let Europe get involved without us for a change. Most Middle Eastern troubles can be traced back to British imperialism, so let them clean up their mess they started so many years ago.

8/27/2013 1:16:01 PM

^^thats called an ally. Syria is not our ally. If this was Mexico or Canada we'd need to be in there.

Quote :

"That is sickening that you would even say that."

Your president said that.

[Edited on August 27, 2013 at 1:18 PM. Reason : russia is already pissed though]

8/27/2013 1:17:22 PM

Quote :

"That is sickening that you would even say that."

Sorry, but numbers matter. If a few dozen people are dying in a civil war, it's not going to concern most countries. But if a regime starts gassing entire villages and wipes out a thousdands in a few days, world leaders get concerned.

8/27/2013 1:20:30 PM

I've kind of gone back and forth on Syria in my own head since the civil war broke out. I think if we had intervened very early on, before foreign fighters (basically Al-Qaeda) began pouring into the country and fighting Assad, that would have made sense. The problem was the scale of military action to do it right would have been closer to Iraq than Libya, which was never going to fly politically. After it turned into what it is now, a sectarian meat grinder with bad guys on all sides, it became clear that the best thing we could do was nothing at all.

It really doesn't make any sense to me that Assad would start deploying chemical weapons at this point, since he was already winning. If he did though, then he's an absolute psychopath and some sort of punitive military action seems warranted. It sounds like what they want to do is essentially send a warning while clearing the path for further action if he does it again.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/27/20209022-military-strikes-on-syria-as-early-as-thursday-us-officials-say?lite


[Edited on August 27, 2013 at 2:02 PM. Reason : added link]

8/27/2013 2:00:32 PM

I think Assad was calling everybody's bluff.

8/27/2013 2:07:46 PM