yes it does matter and Yeah we do care. he does not have sacces to first hand Syrian sources outside of goverment held areas. this is a fact. are you disputing this fact? clearly you don't because you concluded the same. I have no feelings simply because I know a lot of people will have to die before peace returns? please tell me how we with no power to change the situation there will make everyone hold hands and sing songs in harmony since you have all the answers? I have also stated many times that SA is a bad place which the US should not continue to support because of oil and trade. Get real you bad troll. Or are you are just here to try and demonize people who do not share your exact view. please do not put words into our mouths and views into our eyes. that is what a liar does and you do not believe yourself to be one, so do not act like one.
Watching Sean Spicer just hurts my soul. @Lop the first hand video you speak of, does it have conclusive evidence on who executed the attack? If do, could you share it?
@Geressen I don't think you understand the only reason for unrest is US meddling and CIA operations. I am not suggesting you have any power or that you need to become an activist or anything like that. I am merely saying you need to stop excusing the agressor. Trying to excuse any kind of attack by US is like trying to excuse a man beating his wife. ''Uh she deserved it for not cooking him dinner''. Or something ******** like that. Obviously you can't do anything about it. But you won't go to the forums and try to excuse it?
But I am not excusing the US attack. it was a dumb move made without a viable strategic plan or enough to back up the justification they used. however this is seperate from the issue of who did the chemical attack. for which the evidence that it wasn't the Syrian goverment is insuficient. so it was wrong, but not for the reasons some people say it was wrong.
its not wrong for the reasons you say either. time will tell. If its all a big conspiracy to frame the poor murderous dictator then there will be another chemical attack wont there. and if there isn't another chemical attack then the airstrike did exactly what it was meant to do. and btw, if there is a grand plan to oust assad militarily, trump isn't going to present his plan to you, congress, the press or anyone else. expecting to see a strategy laid out for your approval is just silly. all we will ever hear is an ultimatum, assad must go or we will make him go. who is with us? if NATO and arab countries line up behind Trump we will have to assume they know the end game. I think Iraq taught everyone that the arab countries have to be part of the endgame. if the arab countries stay on the sidelines THEN I would suspect there is no viable endgame. and for that reason I think what the arab countries are saying is the thermometer you can use to determine how hot this conflict is going to get.
trump most likely has no plans but the cia, military, and others around him most likely have tons of plans and none of them involve anything but what's potentially best for their agendas. this may be what's good for the us, but it's more likely it's best for some corporate oil's bottom line, and increase the trade of weapons.
dude, read what is written. nowhere do I say that there IS a plan to invade Syria. the airstrike may be the only thing that was intended. and if you say that the airstrike alone isn't enough, that's perhaps because your goals aren't the same as his goals. would Obama have ordered an airstrike on North Korea? hell no. would Trump? youre not so sure of that answer are you. THAT was the goal (or at least one of the reasons) of the airstrike on Syria I think. to give his diplomacy teeth if your point is that trump was being reactionary in that instance, I would probably agree. Syria gave him a reason and he took it. otherwise he probably would have left them alone. remember what I said during the election. that trump threatens the extreme then negotiates towards the middle. but that doesn't work if the threat isn't credible. now its credible.
there is something to what ragic's saying, but it depends a lot on the next moves. if what we know about the missile strike is that we launched some hundred+ million dollars worth of gear half a world away and avoided causing too much damage or death, the main reasons why would be 1-our administration is inept, or 2-it's a show of force, sending the message "we don't care who did it, make it stop" i doubt either of those are gonna leave us in a great place globally, but i would rather have a plan of action than not
Yes. That's actually a thing you know. Also, he'll make more rebels. Those citizens not yet rebelling could very well join the existing ones or start making their own rebel armies as a result. The support that US had been giving to rebels could (and probably will) return rather than diminish as well. What are you talking about "foreseeable deterrence" for? Aside from the fact he's been bombed by the US before in reaction to similar events, that it sparked (further) US support of rebels in the first place; anyone with access can look at the current political climate and guess that there is a significant risk even if that risk can't be fully calculated. Does that mean Assad was unwilling to take the risk? No, but... I'm not arguing that Assad "would never do this" in the situation with information available to him at the time. I'm just saying it was stupid to do it, and not just because of hind-sight. That does not mean he didn't do it. Stop trying to argue with me on something we agree on.
but the rebels were losing. it would be likely that they would continue to lose and that to join them means you become more likely to be a target for a chemical attack.
Which is an assumption. That's the potential "reward" for the risk... but it doesn't mean the risk goes away. In any event... The gas killed many people regardless of their affiliations (and that IS something that would be foreseen from a planned use of the weapon). If it doesn't matter whether or not you're a rebel, and you still get "targeted" anyway? May as well rebel. Sure, some people might also take it as a sign to join up, be good little soldiers and kill anyone that even thinks about looking at the government side-ways. But when you factor in external pressures and support for rebellion possibly picking back up...? Like I said, it doesn't eliminate the risk, and using (easier to target) conventional bombs will get the job done better while still sending the same message to the citizens. But it might not be as financially efficient, and that could easily be a factor not looked at, and may be a tipping point. I don't pretend to know Assad, his full situation, or that of whomever he takes council from. There are plenty of reasons why he might be convinced that doing something like that would be worthwile. But yes, using a gas attack there was stupid.
tomahawks cost 830k. we launched 60. operational costs of the missile cruisers don't count. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3277606/tomahawk-cruise-missiles-cost-syria-donald-trump/ they say 59 were used, but early reports said 1 dudded in the sea.
https://www.apnews.com/19772be1238e49fbb62c509a5b659b3d vs. http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/10/d...knew-about-syrian-chemical-attack-in-advance/ The whole thing is a mess in the US, regarding who to blame, how far to go, etc. On a related note: It seems like Trump himself is reluctant to do more than the missile strike, all while the rest of his admin calls for ousting. Or it could just be Trump is trying to cover with the dove-ish side of his base. Though for me it all still points to the strike being premature at best.
if youre hell bent on evaluating the strike as a mistake. trump is reluctant to oust assad because ousting assad wasn't the goal. look at what happened, look at what was achieved, THEN create your narrative. sigh, liberals.
similarly do not eliminate this potential reward part from the scales weighing wether the goverment or a different faction did it.
I don't. Why do you keep trying to argue with me on that when we agree it's possible Assad did it? Using conventional weapons could still get most of the potential rewards that gas would have, with much reduced risk. Just because it's a stupid move though doesn't mean there aren't potential reasons why Assad would still choose it, and I've never said it wouldn't. Finance, wanting to look like he can fight without Russian aid/puppetry, not wanting to let a good stockpile of gas go to waste... But none of those make it any less stupid. That's all I'm saying. I don't think it was the goal for Trump, but that doesn't mean it's not the goal for other parts of the US government. My point though is that the conflicting reports further shows that the US did not have solid Intel going into the strike, thus why it looks like it was at least premature... or possibly prompted through bad Intel (wouldn't be the first time). The administration itself seems split, (and has seemed that way for some time) on this and other issues. Even if Trump doesn't want to oust Assad or get further involved that doesn't mean others won't try and force the issue (even if they undermine him to do so). As to whether or not the strike was, ultimately, a mistake? I think it's actually too soon to tell. From a humanitarian standpoint, I don't agree with attacking something based on assumptions like it seems to be. But it could still have been a good thing in the long run. We'll have to see as we go.
