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Using either a neutron or a hydrogen bomb to defeat ISIL has deep symbolic value - the scientific method has given humanity more power than any superstitious, backwards mindset. The power of the atom is true and real, not a matter of opinion. Secular Government and a scientific mindset are the only option. Join or Die. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 3, 2015 20:33
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Brown Moses posted:An FSA group claim to have killed a bunch of Russians. With a US provided TOW ATGM. Awkward. At that distance how the hell could anyone tell who they are shooting at?
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Oct 3, 2015 20:36
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Would a cruise missil pointed at Assad`s head help the problem in any way? No rebel Group wants to negotiate when he is in charge and he would rather die then step down. But if he is replaced by some other guy who`s just as evil but not yet a symbol of butchery maybe there is hope? It would also be a Nice gently caress you to Russia, they will be less comfortable dealing With a leader they have no experience with. Plus it would demotivate the SAA and Hezbollah making a deal between the non-Isis rebels and the regime a little bit easier to accomplish. He clearly deserves to die and it would remove a roadblock to peace. I sorta hope Obama orders a hit on him after the election ( if he does it before it could kill Hillary`s chanches).
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Oct 3, 2015 20:40
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Loving Africa Chaps posted:
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Oct 3, 2015 20:42
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Yeah I was wondering about that too, source please.
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Oct 3, 2015 20:43
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Brown Moses posted:An FSA group claim to have killed a bunch of Russians. With a US provided TOW ATGM. Awkward. With them seemingly using regular civilian vans for transport I have a bit of a hard time believing they are regular Russian soldiers. Maybe they just heard them talking a language that wasn't Arabic and assumed it was Russian? Some sort of foreign volunteers or mercenaries maybe?
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Oct 3, 2015 20:46
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Cat Mattress posted:It's certainly a creative way to assassinate all these presidents. lmao
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Oct 3, 2015 20:49
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kustomkarkommando posted:If indiscriminately killing civilians was an effective counter insurgency tactic Assad wouldn't be In the position he's in Comparing Assad's ramshackle air force with ours seems a bit insulting, but even there he's presumably seeing some military benefit from the bombings or why would he risk his planes? Dilkington posted:^^^^^^ I get that it's not as easy as being willing to kill more people and the war is over, but one would expect air power to be more effective in the desert (it certainly stopped Qaddafi) than in the jungle or mountains, and our capacity to kill has certainly grown since WWII (even as our willingness to do so has fallen). Am I overlooking the fact that we've also become far more casualty averse as far as getting our own people killed, so we're bad at attacking moving targets on the ground since we're flying out of effective range? Even if we're (reasonably) not prepared to carpet bomb their cities, I genuinely don't understand how ISIS is capable of moving between cities without being annihilated unless it's because we can't always distinguish their convoys from refugees.
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Oct 3, 2015 20:49
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Sinteres posted:Comparing Assad's ramshackle air force with ours seems a bit insulting, but even there he's presumably seeing some military benefit from the bombings or why would he risk his planes? Supposedly we dont have many people on the ground in Syria. Officially we dont have any. But most likely theres a few spec ops guys in there. For our bombing to be truly effective, we need eyes on the ground to provide targetting info and for overall situational awareness. From what I understand the "moderate rebels" we were training were supposed to be trained and outfitted with advanced equipment for pinpointing airstrikes. And well, we know what happened to those guys. This is why quite a few politicians have been advocating for embedding Kurdish units with Spec ops forces as sort of a "force multiplier" so that they could call in airstrikes more effectively. But as of right now ISIS can still do a lot of things because the planes in the sky arent the all seeing eye we think they are.
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Oct 3, 2015 20:57
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Sinteres posted:Does anybody else ever feel that abiding by rules to fight wars against non-state actors in the 21st century is about as absurd, and doomed to failure, as marching out in Napoleon-era shooting formations to fight a 20th century war? I mean I'm glad my country's military isn't indiscriminately murdering all the civilians it can, especially since the wars we fight today are wars of choice we arguably shouldn't be fighting in the first place, but I also can't help wondering if our moral horror at civilian casualties is a big part of why we don't win wars anymore. Again, I'm glad we're not actually doing this (I've been as socialized to think it's immoral as anyone else), but I can't help feeling if we'd carpet bombed Raqqa the moment we started bombing in Syria, and made it clear that any new stronghold they set up in is next, ISIS probably wouldn't be the center of international recruitment and emulation that it is today. Am I crazy for wondering if our squeamishness and sense of moral superiority leads to more casualties in the long run as these conflicts never end? If we were okay with slaughtering civilians why would we be bombing ISIS in the first place? Better to ally together against the Iranian proxies, which obviously represent a more serious and long term threat to U.S. interests. In fact if the conflict lasts forever that'd be great, just let the Iranians keep bleeding.
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Oct 3, 2015 21:04
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Brown Moses posted:An FSA group claim to have killed a bunch of Russians. With a US provided TOW ATGM. Awkward. They would be Russian special forces if they're on the ground, correct? So why are they quite happy to continue to stand around in the open for a whole two minutes after they just got their poo poo wrecked? E: Honestly watch that. It's completely baffling to me. They seem to go about their business as though nothing happened.
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Oct 3, 2015 21:05
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Squalid posted:If we were okay with slaughtering civilians why would we be bombing ISIS in the first place? Better to ally together against the Iranian proxies, which obviously represent a more serious and long term threat to U.S. interests. In fact if the conflict lasts forever that'd be great, just let the Iranians keep bleeding. Iran doesn't chop off Americans' heads and declare war on the world. Iran may be an adversary, but they're a stakeholder in the international order we oversee in a way ISIS refuses to be.
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Oct 3, 2015 21:08
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Funky See Funky Do posted:They would be Russian special forces if they're on the ground, correct? So why are they quite happy to continue to stand around in the open for a whole two minutes after they just got their poo poo wrecked? The locals told them it was nothing to worry about. Explosions just happen from time to time and you just have to pick yourself up and keep going. Charliegrs posted:At that distance how the hell could anyone tell who they are shooting at? I cant tell from the video but maybe some of them were white? Anyone with a pale complexion is probably going to look Russian to them. Ikasuhito fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Oct 3, 2015 |
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Oct 3, 2015 21:11
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Funky See Funky Do posted:They would be Russian special forces if they're on the ground, correct? So why are they quite happy to continue to stand around in the open for a whole two minutes after they just got their poo poo wrecked? SPETSNAZ gives no fucks. "Oh you have hole in leg keep walking big baby or I call putin"
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Oct 3, 2015 21:16
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Sinteres posted:Suggesting we should shoot down Russian planes if they violate our hypothetical no fly zone which would have no justification under international law is hilarious. I personally think Russia is more of a bad actor than the US, but they have more of a legal right to operate in Syria than we do since they've been invited by what is (I'd say regrettably, but I haven't seen a credible alternative proposed by anyone yet) still the internationally recognized legitimate government of Syria. As the principle benefactor of the status quo which the international order is meant to uphold, this rogue superpower bullshit in which we do whatever we want is a really bad idea. Given that the US is responsible for the environment in which ISIS was born in the first place, you'd think some humility would be in order rather than all this neocon cheerleading nonsense. "Legality" in foreign policy is a complete loving joke. It doesn't matter whether something is approved by the UNSC. What matters is who will support you. Under UN interpretation, Syria is to remain a failed state in a downward spiral, with a gradual uptick in extremism, and the empowerment of groups like ISIS. That's not good enough. 100 countries, to include the EU and the Arab League, recognize the SNC as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, and the SNC has been pleading for a no fly zone for years. That Russia and China can veto anything supporting that in the UNSC is irrelevant. Only a handful of countries support what Assad, Iran, and Putin are doing there. The vast majority would support the US in efforts to counter that, at least in words, "legality" be damned. And the past is the past. What will encourage ISIS' growth moving forward is Russia, Iran, and Assad continuing down the road they're on in Syria. Until Assad is gone, groups like ISIS will have a sales pitch, and that coalition is doing everything they can to maintain that status quo. We can't allow that. Aiding to bring about the end of Assad will free up the opposition to devote more attention to fighting ISIS, and it will give the world an opportunity to aid in forming a legitimate democratic government in Syria that can provide the stability and rule of law so that groups like JaN and Ahrar al-Sham can also start to become less popular. That's in the worlds interest. quote:Sisi is definitely more in the US-Saudi camp than the Russian camp, but nice try pretending there's an alliance of evil dictators led by Russia being opposed by the plucky forces of freedom and democracy. Sisi is mad at the US for playing nice with the MB, and not giving full support to the indiscriminate crack downs the regime has been more than happy to impose, and the people of Egypt support him on that. It's a very anti-American environment. He just recently made a big show of hanging out with Putin specifically to thumb his nose at the US. I guarantee Sisi sees Russia as the country he wants in his corner, and in time, Egypt's role in the geopolitical landscape will change to fit that. It's already starting to.
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Oct 3, 2015 21:17
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 One day the sadness will end.
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Oct 3, 2015 21:22
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Any more news on those supposed hundreds of Iranian Revolutionary guards that are supposed to be heading to Syria?
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Oct 3, 2015 21:26
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Oh ok on rewatching it seems that the white van is another group of people coming in to finish off survivors?
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Oct 3, 2015 21:30
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Funky See Funky Do posted:Oh ok on rewatching it seems that the white van is another group of people coming in to finish off survivors? Not quite, look just to the left of the building that was hit (before it is hit). You should be able to see the van, they just brought it up so they can cart off the wounded.
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Oct 3, 2015 21:43
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Volkerball posted:"Legality" in foreign policy is a complete loving joke. It doesn't matter whether something is approved by the UNSC. What matters is who will support you. Under UN interpretation, Syria is to remain a failed state in a downward spiral, with a gradual uptick in extremism, and the empowerment of groups like ISIS. That's not good enough. 100 countries, to include the EU and the Arab League, recognize the SNC as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, and the SNC has been pleading for a no fly zone for years. That Russia and China can veto anything supporting that in the UNSC is irrelevant. Only a handful of countries support what Assad, Iran, and Putin are doing there. The vast majority would support the US in efforts to counter that, at least in words, "legality" be damned. The actual point of international law is to prevent great power conflict, and shooting down Russian planes in a country they've been allied with for decades is the opposite of that. Of course we have the military power to defeat Russia in a conventional conflict, but that doesn't make it a smart thing to do. I know you're confident Russia won't escalate because doing so would be irrational, but that's the entire logic of brinkmanship -- each step along the way is a bet that the other side will blink first because the stakes become far higher than the initial issue. But of course realizing the other side has even more incentive to back down at the next step if you do escalate creates an incentive to do so, and at the very least increases the risk of a misunderstanding or accident taking the situation out of control. Going back to the law of the jungle between great powers over a shithole like Syria, where we can't even find a credible alternative to the monster currently running it, would be moronic. Do you really think Cairo's about to abandon its sugar daddies in Washington and Riyadh in favor of a weakened Putin who can barely afford to keep his own country going? At most Sisi's flirting with Russia to try to convince the US we should stop criticizing him when he murders his own people, which we've mostly done already anyway.
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Oct 3, 2015 21:45
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It would be very odd to have Russian dudes anywhere near what looks like the front line. Could be advisors I guess but still, there's just not really any reason you'd want them to be that exposed. In any event it's telling that there been a video of a Russian plane shot down and now Russian soldiers getting killed. It seems the rebels really, really want to kill them some Russians 
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Oct 3, 2015 21:49
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kustomkarkommando posted:If indiscriminately killing civilians was an effective counter insurgency tactic Assad wouldn't be In the position he's in I'm always slightly disturbed by this line of reasoning, especially when its coming from the mouths of military men. "Ah, well you see OF COURSE we would have committed those atrocities if they worked, in fact we even drew detailed plans for exterminating their miserable race. But of course you see, it would be SO inefficient." Sinteres posted:Iran doesn't chop off Americans' heads and declare war on the world. Iran may be an adversary, but they're a stakeholder in the international order we oversee in a way ISIS refuses to be. Pretty goddamned thin justification for slaughtering everyone between Aleppo and Mosul, imo. One could easily argue Iran has undermined the international order by supporting terrorists, the Houthi etc, or draw attention to their execution of homosexuals, kidnapping and imprisonment of Americans, and violation of diplomatic rights. Or point to the natural limits of ISIS's growth, their focus on local enemies rather than global jihad, the fact that their execution of Americans didn't start until after the bombing campaign, but it doesn't matter. This conflict makes absolutely no sense from a purely realpolitik perspective, especially not the way we've fought it. There's literately nothing material to be gained from reducing Raqqa to dust. You have to use some other justification. And if you're resorting to indiscriminate terror bombing its not going to be in the name of humanitarianism.
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Oct 3, 2015 21:59
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Volkerball posted:"Legality" in foreign policy is a complete loving joke. Whoah, is it 2003?
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Oct 3, 2015 22:00
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:Whoah, is it 2003? Well, I think the events of that year rather proved his point. 'Legal' is what the people with nukes say it is. e: Not saying that's a desirable thing, just how it is.
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Oct 3, 2015 22:02
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Sinteres posted:The actual point of international law is to prevent great power conflict, and shooting down Russian planes in a country they've been allied with for decades is the opposite of that. Of course we have the military power to defeat Russia in a conventional conflict, but that doesn't make it a smart thing to do. I know you're confident Russia won't escalate because doing so would be irrational, but that's the entire logic of brinkmanship -- each step along the way is a bet that the other side will blink first because the stakes become far higher than the initial issue. But of course realizing the other side has even more incentive to back down at the next step if you do escalate creates an incentive to do so, and at the very least increases the risk of a misunderstanding or accident taking the situation out of control. Going back to the law of the jungle between great powers over a shithole like Syria, where we can't even find a credible alternative to the monster currently running it, would be moronic. Nothing is going to take the situation out of control in Syria, and I don't think anything that happens there could lead to a conventional conflict. It already is the law of the jungle, the US is just trying its best to pretend it's not. I forget who said it, but there's an old quote that says the only thing barbarians understand is force. That is the situation we are in with Russia right now. Every time we take a step back, it doesn't de-escalate the situation, because Russia takes a step forward, and we're right back where we were except now we're in a weaker position because we capitulated before in the interest of peace. With that in mind, it's less confrontational to draw the line here and stick by it then if we have to do it further down the road over something we really can't budge on. If you continue to Neville Chamberlain away positions of advantage to Putin, it's going to make the situation worse down the road, not solve it. I'd rather that we solve the problem now, in something globally inconsequential like Syria, at the benefit of the civilian population in the country. We aren't going to get much of a better opportunity. quote:Do you really think Cairo's about to abandon its sugar daddies in Washington and Riyadh in favor of a weakened Putin who can barely afford to keep his own country going? At most Sisi's flirting with Russia to try to convince the US we should stop criticizing him when he murders his own people, which we've mostly done already anyway. When Mubarak became inconvenient in his efforts to maintain control of Egypt, in time, the US abandoned him. Compare that to Russias response to Assad when he attempted the same thing. If you're a tyrant who will go to any lengths to maintain power, Russia is who you want on your side, because Putin will go to any lengths to support you in that endeavor. The US will sit there and whine about human rights and respecting the political process. Putin will flat out lie and say you're doing all those things, but terrorists. Sisi isn't going to abandon the US. He'll use them as long as it benefits him to do so. But I guarantee he doesn't trust us to support his dictatorial policies farther than he can throw us. If push comes to shove, he'll throw the US under the bus, and use Russian propaganda to maintain his legitimacy.
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Oct 3, 2015 22:04
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Squalid posted:if you're resorting to indiscriminate terror bombing its not going to be in the name of humanitarianism. Why not? We did it 70 years ago. Within a week the war would be over.
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Oct 3, 2015 22:04
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Squalid posted:I'm always slightly disturbed by this line of reasoning, especially when its coming from the mouths of military men. I said I don't support terror bombing, I just don't understand why we keep playing army or air force or whatever when the kind of stakes required to commit to fighting a genuine war aren't in play. I'd be pretty happy to watch Russia either defeat ISIS (yay) or get bogged down in a war they can't win (yay) in Syria rather than fight with them over who can lead this stupid war, so I'll all for some old fashioned realpolitik here. You're still overstating the extent to which Iran isn't a traditional power. Yes they have some ability to cause mischief in areas with significant Shia populations, but if we're talking natural limits, the reality that Shia are a substantial minority in the Muslim world would seem to be a significant barrier to Iranian hegemony. Of course they initially inspired a lot of terrorism even from Sunni groups, but the sectarian conflict we unleashed starting in 2003 probably means their influence in the Sunni world is pretty limited at this point. You mentioned the Houthis, but Saudi Arabia is currently bombing the gently caress out of Yemen without a peep from anyone, which is far more than Iran has done to intervene in that conflict. Saudi Arabian money has obviously gone to bad people in Syria as well, where Iran is currently most active, and they have similarly horrific human rights abuses at home. The key differences are that Saudi Arabia funds extremism on a global scale too, and that the US is their superpower patron. Volkerball posted:Nothing is going to take the situation out of control in Syria, and I don't think anything that happens there could lead to a conventional conflict. It already is the law of the jungle, the US is just trying its best to pretend it's not. I forget who said it, but there's an old quote that says the only thing barbarians understand is force. That is the situation we are in with Russia right now. Every time we take a step back, it doesn't de-escalate the situation, because Russia takes a step forward, and we're right back where we were except now we're in a weaker position because we capitulated before in the interest of peace. With that in mind, it's less confrontational to draw the line here and stick by it then if we have to do it further down the road over something we really can't budge on. If you continue to Neville Chamberlain away positions of advantage to Putin, it's going to make the situation worse down the road, not solve it. I'd rather that we solve the problem now, in something globally inconsequential like Syria, at the benefit of the civilian population in the country. We aren't going to get much of a better opportunity. Please stop pretending Putin is some master strategist pushing the US around and we're going to lose a phony Cold War 2 by refusing to engage. His flailing in Ukraine was a last gasp (mostly failed) effort to salvage his loss of that country as an ally, just as his defense of Assad is a last gasp effort to salvage that country as one of his few remaining global allies. This all happens in a backdrop of incredibly low oil prices, so Putin's economy is running on fumes as he's throwing away any goodwill non-allied countries might have for Russia. Even China basically told him to gently caress off when he sought a closer relationship to balance against the West. If you see that as strength, it just shows how the neocon lens you view the world through favors action over inaction regardless of the circumstances.
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Oct 3, 2015 22:18
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the JJ posted:Well, I think the events of that year rather proved his point. 'Legal' is what the people with nukes say it is. Sure, but you're setting terrible precedents once you've taken the international legal regime and torn it up like tissue paper. The United States has always taken an exceptionalist stance to international law, and the Bush years were just the extreme realization of that attitude. It naturally follows that other powerful states like Russia and China could press their advantages unilaterally and there's nothing anybody else could do about it because they've got the nukes too. The state of international lawlessness that Volkerball is arguing for is a recipe for international conflict, and the fact that he's so retardedly glib about starting an air war with Russia just goes to show how divested from reality he actually is.
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Oct 3, 2015 22:20
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Sinteres posted:Please stop pretending Putin is some master strategist pushing the US around and we're going to lose a phony Cold War 2 by refusing to engage. His flailing in Ukraine was a last gasp (mostly failed) effort to salvage his loss of that country as an ally, just as his defense of Assad is a last gasp effort to salvage that country as one of his few remaining global allies. This all happens in a backdrop of incredibly low oil prices, so Putin's economy is running on fumes as he's throwing away any goodwill non-allied countries might have for Russia. Even China basically told him to gently caress off when he sought a closer relationship to balance against the West. If you see that as strength, it just shows how the neocon lens you view the world through favors action over inaction regardless of the circumstances. I'm not pretending that at all. Putin and Russia are obviously no existential threat to the US. If they were, we'd have to tread much more carefully. But they are a threat to a very large number of countries, and are consistently on the most destabilizing and abusive sides given reports from HRW and Amnesty in areas Russia gets involved. Putins actions in Syria are bad, and will have a very negative, long lasting effect, both in the region, and the world. It's in the worlds interest to stop that. And we should. Drawing the line for once and forcing Putin to concede this one will go a long ways towards creating a Russian apprehension to get involved in these nakedly imperialist adventures like snatching up Crimea, and giving a brutal and unpopular dictatorship a blank check to slaughter its own people. Putin needs to be shown that these types of aggressive activities will result in things getting worse for him, not better, and right now, that's not the case. With that in mind, there's nothing preventing him from doing these types of things. That Russia is "running on fumes" like you claim isn't doing it, if you haven't been following the news this week. It's amazing what an unaccountable dictatorship can do on a budget when there's no domestic opposition to how the nations money is spent.
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Oct 3, 2015 22:38
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Chewbacca Defense posted:A hospital can lose it's protected status if it is being used for a military purpose i.e. placing an anti-aircraft gun on top of it, etc. Uhh.. Is it just me or is the word-for-word the line Israel offers after leveling an entire neighborhood in Gaza? Or is this a case of  ?
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Oct 3, 2015 22:39
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:The state of international lawlessness that Volkerball is arguing for is a recipe for international conflict, and the fact that he's so retardedly glib about starting an air war with Russia just goes to show how divested from reality he actually is. Why is it on the US to capitulate again and again, rather than on Putin to stop acting in accordance with a state of international lawlessness you find so harmful? The US is not the aggressor here by any means. We are arguing about a response. Don't ignore that context.
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Oct 3, 2015 22:41
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You're an old man's battle fodder. Killing everyone and everything!! We are not to blame. Then who killed the world?!!
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Oct 3, 2015 22:44
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Because of U.S. retrenchment for last 5 years were only making the problem worse when we eventuality have to confront russia to force them to retreat from the Mid East again. Isis and their ilk will burn them selfs or kill each other but pushing Russia back to the caspian will be a priority.
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Oct 3, 2015 22:49
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Volkerball posted:Why is it on the US to capitulate again and again, rather than on Putin to stop acting in accordance with a state of international lawlessness you find so harmful? The US is not the aggressor here by any means. We are arguing about a response. Don't ignore that context. A response to what? It's not as if the Syrian state committed any aggressions against their neighbors here, this is a civil war and thus an internal conflict. All sovereign states have a right to prosecute a civil war without being considered an "aggressor" until the point that they start violating the legal boundaries. The chemical attacks were one such violation, but Russia negotiated a diplomatic solution. You know who is assaulting their neighbors? ISIS, and it makes sense for the United States to limit our intervention in that regard because they are an international aggressor. You talk about the United States "capitulating" as if there was some nebulous threat that we're standing down in the face of. What the gently caress are you talking about?
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Oct 3, 2015 22:51
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Volkerball posted:I'm not pretending that at all. Putin and Russia are obviously no existential threat to the US. If they were, we'd have to tread much more carefully. But they are a threat to a very large number of countries, and are consistently on the most destabilizing and abusive sides given reports from HRW and Amnesty in areas Russia gets involved. Putins actions in Syria are bad, and will have a very negative, long lasting effect, both in the region, and the world. It's in the worlds interest to stop that. And we should. Drawing the line for once and forcing Putin to concede this one will go a long ways towards creating a Russian apprehension to get involved in these nakedly imperialist adventures like snatching up Crimea, and giving a brutal and unpopular dictatorship a blank check to slaughter its own people. Putin needs to be shown that these types of aggressive activities will result in things getting worse for him, not better, and right now, that's not the case. With that in mind, there's nothing preventing him from doing these types of things. That Russia is "running on fumes" like you claim isn't doing it, if you haven't been following the news this week. It's amazing what an unaccountable dictatorship can do on a budget when there's no domestic opposition to how the nations money is spent. You literally brought up Chamberlain and appeasement, so one could be forgiven for thinking you were taking Russia pretty seriously as a real threat rather than an annoyance who's stirring up trouble only in their own sphere of influence. Things are getting worse for Putin rather than better, and he's doubling down because his regime is built on an illusion of strength. Unfortunately his most ardent opponents are more than happy to pretend he actually is strong in order to justify their own warmongering. If a few bombing runs in Syria were an indication of strength, presumably you'd be praising Obama for his robust defense strategy throughout the world rather than chastising him for his failure to stop evildoers everywhere. Volkerball posted:Why is it on the US to capitulate again and again, rather than on Putin to stop acting in accordance with a state of international lawlessness you find so harmful? The US is not the aggressor here by any means. We are arguing about a response. Don't ignore that context. When has the US capitulated even once to Russia? I don't recall us kicking the Baltic countries out of NATO to avoid offending Putin; we just watched Russia bog themselves down in a costly meatgrinder conflict in a country that's never been an ally of ours while punishing Russia economically for doing so. Again, Russia has at least as much legitimate reason to be in Syria as we do, so your bold declaration that the US isn't the aggressor here and that we should stop Russia's lawlessness is just another example of wishful thinking based on a hopelessly idealistic belief in American exceptionalism. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Oct 3, 2015 |
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Oct 3, 2015 22:52
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Greataval posted:Because of U.S. retrenchment for last 5 years were only making the problem worse when we eventuality have to confront russia to force them to retreat from the Mid East again. Isis and their ilk will burn them selfs or kill each other but pushing Russia back to the caspian will be a priority. 
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Oct 3, 2015 22:53
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Sinteres posted:I said I don't support terror bombing, I just don't understand why we keep playing army or air force or whatever when the kind of stakes required to commit to fighting a genuine war aren't in play. I'd be pretty happy to watch Russia either defeat ISIS (yay) or get bogged down in a war they can't win (yay) in Syria rather than fight with them over who can lead this stupid war, so I'll all for some old fashioned realpolitik here. None of the specifics regarding our opponents in these conflicts really matter, I only brought up Iran to show that the self-interested path is ambiguous. However by fighting a "genuine war" as you called it, i.e. by discarding our "squeamishness and sense of moral superiority," we would undermine one of the fundamental objectives of U.S. intervention, that being to protect the people of Iraq and Syria.
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Oct 3, 2015 22:56
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bango skank posted:Uhh.. Is it just me or is the word-for-word the line Israel offers after leveling an entire neighborhood in Gaza? Or is this a case of Yeah I don't know why people say "the US tries to avoid civilian casualties" like that means anything at all. War and occupation of a country are inevitably going to produce a lot of civilian deaths, saying "well, we tried" doesn't make them any less dead, if it was ever true in the first place. If someone's going to defend civilians getting killed I'd much rather they did it from the standpoint of arguing about how worthwhile the bombing was, rather than by shrugging and saying it was an accident, as if it was even possible to bomb populated areas without civilians dying. Sucrose fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Oct 3, 2015 |
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Oct 3, 2015 22:59
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:Sure, but you're setting terrible precedents once you've taken the international legal regime and torn it up like tissue paper. The United States has always taken an exceptionalist stance to international law, and the Bush years were just the extreme realization of that attitude. It naturally follows that other powerful states like Russia and China could press their advantages unilaterally and there's nothing anybody else could do about it because they've got the nukes too. The state of international lawlessness that Volkerball is arguing for is a recipe for international conflict, and the fact that he's so retardedly glib about starting an air war with Russia just goes to show how divested from reality he actually is. Sure, but Russia took down a civilian jetliner and their little green men knocked off a shitton of real deal official army bases not long before they started sending 'volunteers' to join a civil war next door. After, you know, just up an annexing a huge and strategically important chunk of the country. But this isn't exceptional. From its inception (in modern global format roughly, League of Nation. Before that, in the West, Westphalia) power has always taken point. Meanwhile, Assad has been pretty casually gassing/bombing/doing poo poo to his own people that we knew he shouldn't oughta. He knows we know, we know he knows we know. Ditto Putin in Ukraine, ditto USA in Iraq and Ajax and Iran-Contra and droning the poo poo out of people because we can and certain SpecOp raids into Pakistan and, well, take your pick. Yes, it's scary, yes it's lovely, yes, I think we'd all be better off if there were an impartial force that could lean in and go 'no, bad dog' but we're not there yet.* There are a lot of other reasons to not jump straight to 'gently caress you, fly off or we'll shoot you down' but appealing to international law isn't the best place to start. Though, ironically, I think more agressively calling Putin et. al. on their poo poo would have been a better place to start so we wouldn't be verging on this level of escalation would have been best.** *And, incidentally, it was the 'that should be US!' idiots not the fucks going 'gently caress that' that got the USA hip deep in Mesopotamia. ** Plus, you know, policing our own poo poo. Obama's been better about this than Bush so so... progress?
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Oct 3, 2015 23:01
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Squalid posted:None of the specifics regarding our opponents in these conflicts really matter, I only brought up Iran to show that the self-interested path is ambiguous. However by fighting a "genuine war" as you called it, i.e. by discarding our "squeamishness and sense of moral superiority," we would undermine one of the fundamental objectives of U.S. intervention, that being to protect the people of Iraq and Syria. I agree, which is why I said the stakes aren't sufficient to justify fighting a genuine war, so maybe we should stop pretending that's what we're doing. To his credit, Obama has done about as little as the Washington consensus would allow, even as the chattering classes have increasingly clamored for the something that must be done in the face of all the evidence suggesting we're not very good at fixing these messes.
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Oct 3, 2015 23:04
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