Deafening Silence on Russian Syria Intervention

Putin with the "lead, follow, or get out the *****ing way!" move. I find this situation very interesting. While Russia is certainly looking to jab the American Empire in the eye and is looking out for Russia's interests,he has something Western governments don't have in regards to Syria: a coherent policy. He seems to have chosen 1 side in the conflict as it offers both better stability in the intermediate term and actually goes after the terrorists.

Why didn't we think of that?

TylerDurden said:
Putin with the "lead, follow, or get out the *****ing way!" move. I find this situation very interesting. While Russia is certainly looking to jab the American Empire in the eye and is looking out for Russia's interests,he has something Western governments don't have in regards to Syria: a coherent policy. He seems to have chosen 1 side in the conflict as it offers both better stability in the intermediate term and actually goes after the terrorists.
Why didn't we think of that?

He "chose" someone that Russia was already allied with - Assad. There was no one in the fight that aligned with US interests.

Who should we have picked?

And I thought you were against US military intervention in the Middle East. Something about us just making things worse...

Yep. He's chosen Assad because Assad opposes ISIS. Indeed, why didn't we think of that? After all, Assad isn't so bad...

TylerDurden said:
Putin with the "lead, follow, or get out the *****ing way!" move. I find this situation very interesting. While Russia is certainly looking to jab the American Empire in the eye and is looking out for Russia's interests,he has something Western governments don't have in regards to Syria: a coherent policy. He seems to have chosen 1 side in the conflict as it offers both better stability in the intermediate term and actually goes after the terrorists.
Why didn't we think of that?

The cold reality of it is that the nasty dictators we know have consistently been better than their successors. However, we yammer on about democracy so much that it is a little hard to support nasty dictators.

tjohn said:

TylerDurden said:
Putin with the "lead, follow, or get out the *****ing way!" move. I find this situation very interesting. While Russia is certainly looking to jab the American Empire in the eye and is looking out for Russia's interests,he has something Western governments don't have in regards to Syria: a coherent policy. He seems to have chosen 1 side in the conflict as it offers both better stability in the intermediate term and actually goes after the terrorists.
Why didn't we think of that?

The cold reality of it is that the nasty dictators we know have consistently been better than their successors. However, we yammer on about democracy so much that it is a little hard to support nasty dictators.

Exactly. We need to preserve that as a pretext for invading other countries in the future.

ml1 said:

tjohn said:

TylerDurden said:
Putin with the "lead, follow, or get out the *****ing way!" move. I find this situation very interesting. While Russia is certainly looking to jab the American Empire in the eye and is looking out for Russia's interests,he has something Western governments don't have in regards to Syria: a coherent policy. He seems to have chosen 1 side in the conflict as it offers both better stability in the intermediate term and actually goes after the terrorists.
Why didn't we think of that?

The cold reality of it is that the nasty dictators we know have consistently been better than their successors. However, we yammer on about democracy so much that it is a little hard to support nasty dictators.

Exactly. We need to preserve that as a pretext for invading other countries in the future.

That's not what I meant. Policies can't be one-sided. It's great to say that <insert dictator of choice here> is a terrible person and should be overthrown, but it's important to understand what is likely to come next before actually taking action.

I can't think of the last dictator toppling in the region that worked out for the best.

tjohn said:

ml1 said:

tjohn said:

TylerDurden said:
Putin with the "lead, follow, or get out the *****ing way!" move. I find this situation very interesting. While Russia is certainly looking to jab the American Empire in the eye and is looking out for Russia's interests,he has something Western governments don't have in regards to Syria: a coherent policy. He seems to have chosen 1 side in the conflict as it offers both better stability in the intermediate term and actually goes after the terrorists.
Why didn't we think of that?

The cold reality of it is that the nasty dictators we know have consistently been better than their successors. However, we yammer on about democracy so much that it is a little hard to support nasty dictators.

Exactly. We need to preserve that as a pretext for invading other countries in the future.

That's not what I meant. Policies can't be one-sided. It's great to say that <insert dictator of choice here> is a terrible person and should be overthrown, but it's important to understand what is likely to come next before actually taking action.

sorry.

That's what I meant.

Russian influence is NEVER a good thing and Al-Assad was NEVER a good alternative. I doubt anyone on here can imagine how terrible life under Al-Assad was/is, especially if you weren't an Alawite.

Please write the good alternatives on a piece of paper and drive it straight to Washington. They need your help.

LOL How about our POTUS realize our inaction has now created a national security need for US pro-active force, and not the half measures taken so far with limited air power, but a real sense of urgency to defeat ISIS and empower the non Alawite populations to formally separate from Syria.

RobB said:
Please write the good alternatives on a piece of paper and drive it straight to Washington. They need your help.

I predict this will turn out as well for Russia as this sort of thing turns out for us. Seems like we enjoy taking turns at this sort of thing. "What, Russia, you had a terrible time in Afghanistan? Let us show you how it's done. Oh, ok, now we see what you were talking about. Well, we've been having a hard time bending remaking the middle east in our image, why don't you give it a shot - ha, got you!"

Imperial entanglements, a fun game for everyone! (especially the people lucky enough to live in the targets of attention!)

Hey Bubba, wasn't it some previous POTUS's action that created a bunch of this mess? The good news is that now another country can be called the Great Satan II and maybe take some of the focus off of us.

Funny how Syria is similar to the US. In Syria things are much better for you if you are Alawite, in the US things are better for you if you are All White.

BubbaTerp said:
LOL "> How about our POTUS realize our inaction has now created a national security need for US pro-active force, and not the half measures taken so far with limited air power, but a real sense of urgency to defeat ISIS and empower the non Alawite populations to formally separate from Syria.

RobB said:
Please write the good alternatives on a piece of paper and drive it straight to Washington. They need your help.

Just a quick note that that's not an alternative. Unless you suggesting a full-scale invasion, rather than such "half measures."

Good to know that if we only had a real sense of urgency about ISIS, we could make them go away.

PVW said:
I predict this will turn out as well for Russia as this sort of thing turns out for us. Seems like we enjoy taking turns at this sort of thing. "What, Russia, you had a terrible time in Afghanistan? Let us show you how it's done. Oh, ok, now we see what you were talking about. Well, we've been having a hard time bending remaking the middle east in our image, why don't you give it a shot - ha, got you!"

Imperial entanglements, a fun game for everyone! (especially the people lucky enough to live in the targets of attention!)

Exactly. Russia is threatened more by ISIS than we are--which is one reason they are doing this--but the idea that they have some magic bullet to "win" is absurd.

bettyd said:
Are we going to relive the Cold War, with the locus now the Middle East? I say have at it Vladimir, let us know how it works out. We're out of Afghanistan in 2016, maybe you should take over. Game's on again!

We are halfway there, given Russia's military and economy are pretty much in tatters.

dave23 said:

bettyd said:
Are we going to relive the Cold War, with the locus now the Middle East? I say have at it Vladimir, let us know how it works out. We're out of Afghanistan in 2016, maybe you should take over. Game's on again!

We are halfway there, given Russia's military and economy are pretty much in tatters.

And Russia's seen this movie before, in Afghanistan. Let Putin rip off his shirt and take action in Syria. We need a break.

Also agree that it never seems to work out after we've toppled or watched the toppling of strongmen. Certainly seems like Egypt is back to Square One after their brief experiment. Is it better to have a stable and strong government next to Israel? I guess so.

And both my cynical comments mean more dead civilians. I have no answer for the Middle East, apart from sending aid money to worthy causes.

And this time we won't need to overtly arm the "resistance." They seem to be plenty well armed on their own.

When you lack morals it's easy to develop a "coherent policy." Putin doesn't give a crap about the Syrians. He just wants ISIS defeated at any cost, including destroying the lives of millions of civilians by supporting Assad.

"Just a quick note that that's not an alternative. Unless you suggesting a full-scale invasion, rather than such 'half measures.'" I know that comment above was made in reference to Syria, but it made me think of Afghanistan.

The quote brought up a reminder from the past of discussions on this board. After 9/11, when we were in Afghanistan, I suggested on this board that if we were serious we needed to go all out and everyone in the U.S. was going to have to sacrifice. Remember Bush's talk after 9/11 - we should go on shopping, keep going to Disney, go about your lives as though nothing has happened, we don't need to sacrifice. I said the only way to do this properly was to re-institute the draft, get western European countries and other countries sympathetic to us at the time in the aftermath of 9/11, and have a large scale invasion of Afghanistan, going slowly from South to North in massive numbers. Kind of like a 21st Century D-Day invasion, slowly securing and re-building the country along the way. The leader of Pakistan at the time, Pervez Musaharraf, was allied with us after 9/11 and was against extremism and Islamic terror. He said he would allow us to use Pakistan for bases and to move into Afghanistan.

Everyone responded saying no, it would take too much time and cost too much money. Now, here we are, 14 plus years later and trillions down the tube and things are arguably worse than they were on 9/10/01. We let our overburdened all volunteer military handle it piece meal, doing tour after tour, without any coherent strategy for victory, all the while directing most of our material and personnel and efforts in a misadventure in Iraq.

Could it have been done politically? I doubt it, but that was what was required. We should have been like America after Pearl Harbor, but we weren't. Our "half measures" in Afghanistan have gotten us to this point.

I just want to point out that when I say "half measures" I am talking about the commitment of our government and politicians, not those who volunteered to serve, and are serving, in Afghanistan. They fought bravely and many of them lost their lives, were seriously injured, served mutltiple deployments, or have come home wrecked. They gave it their all and by no means gave "half measure." It has been the longest and costliest war in U.S. history, but life for most of us has not changed one bit since 9/11/01.

dave23 said:
When you lack morals it's easy to develop a "coherent policy." Putin doesn't give a crap about the Syrians. He just wants ISIS defeated at any cost, including destroying the lives of millions of civilians by supporting Assad.

Not sure that our government has morals.

Ok Jeff. Not sure how Bush 2 is responsible for the Arab Spring in Syria and the reaction of the Syrian government to the Arab Spring, nor is he responsible for the Alawites lording over the other ethnic groups, nor is he responsible for Islamic fascism.

jeffhandy said:
Hey Bubba, wasn't it some previous POTUS's action that created a bunch of this mess? The good news is that now another country can be called the Great Satan II and maybe take some of the focus off of us.
Funny how Syria is similar to the US. In Syria things are much better for you if you are Alawite, in the US things are better for you if you are All White.

There are plenty of degrees between the current involvement and full scale invasion. Your argument of either this or the absolute worst extreme was the weak point of the pro Iran appeasement perspective.

dave23 said:

BubbaTerp said:
LOL "> How about our POTUS realize our inaction has now created a national security need for US pro-active force, and not the half measures taken so far with limited air power, but a real sense of urgency to defeat ISIS and empower the non Alawite populations to formally separate from Syria.

RobB said:
Please write the good alternatives on a piece of paper and drive it straight to Washington. They need your help.

Just a quick note that that's not an alternative. Unless you suggesting a full-scale invasion, rather than such "half measures."

The U.S. entered WWII after December 7, 1941. Nazi Germany was defeated by May 1945 and Japan by August of that year.

We've been in Afghanistan since 2001 and won't be out till the end of 2016. And who knows what the state of the country will be at that time.

Yes, there are. I just haven't heard any viable "full measures" from you or any others.

I agree with you that some supporters of diplomacy with Iran relied on the "it's either this or war" too much. Including Obama. But bringing Iran into this conversation is apt in the sense that it's another example of backseat driving while offering no real, viable alternatives. Just a lot of complaining and vague allusions that somewhere, someone has a better idea.

BubbaTerp said:
There are plenty of degrees between the current involvement and full scale invasion. Your argument of either this or the absolute worst extreme was the weak point of the pro Iran appeasement perspective.

dave23 said:

BubbaTerp said:
LOL "> How about our POTUS realize our inaction has now created a national security need for US pro-active force, and not the half measures taken so far with limited air power, but a real sense of urgency to defeat ISIS and empower the non Alawite populations to formally separate from Syria.

RobB said:
Please write the good alternatives on a piece of paper and drive it straight to Washington. They need your help.

Just a quick note that that's not an alternative. Unless you suggesting a full-scale invasion, rather than such "half measures."

Sustained all out aerial assaults on ISIS and Al Nusra to start, leading and coordinating these with NATO and Arab League forces while supporting no-fly zones for refugees within Syria and gradually increasing the size and scope of those zones with Peacekeeping 3rd party troops. That's where I'd start. Potentially leverage special forces for surgical operaions designed to degrade the organization.

Additionally, put the super tight vise on ISIS finances (needing tough diplomacy with regional players) and use US or allied troops in a non combat role in border countries to patrol borders preventing new recruits from joining.

dave23 said:
Yes, there are. I just haven't heard any viable "full measures" from you or any others.
I agree with you that some supporters of diplomacy with Iran relied on the "it's either this or war" too much. Including Obama. But bringing Iran into this conversation is apt in the sense that it's another example of backseat driving while offering no real, viable alternatives. Just a lot of complaining and vague allusions that somewhere, someone has a better idea.

BubbaTerp said:
There are plenty of degrees between the current involvement and full scale invasion. Your argument of either this or the absolute worst extreme was the weak point of the pro Iran appeasement perspective.

dave23 said:

BubbaTerp said:
LOL "> How about our POTUS realize our inaction has now created a national security need for US pro-active force, and not the half measures taken so far with limited air power, but a real sense of urgency to defeat ISIS and empower the non Alawite populations to formally separate from Syria.

RobB said:
Please write the good alternatives on a piece of paper and drive it straight to Washington. They need your help.

Just a quick note that that's not an alternative. Unless you suggesting a full-scale invasion, rather than such "half measures."

"...with Peacekeeping 3rd party troops"

From?....

BubbaTerp said:
Sustained all out aerial assaults on ISIS and Al Nusra to start, leading and coordinating these with NATO and Arab League forces while supporting no-fly zones for refugees within Syria and gradually increasing the size and scope of those zones with Peacekeeping 3rd party troops. That's where I'd start. Potentially leverage special forces for surgical operaions designed to degrade the organization.
Additionally, put the super tight vise on ISIS finances (needing tough diplomacy with regional players) and use US or allied troops in a non combat role in border countries to patrol borders preventing new recruits from joining.

dave23 said:
Yes, there are. I just haven't heard any viable "full measures" from you or any others.
I agree with you that some supporters of diplomacy with Iran relied on the "it's either this or war" too much. Including Obama. But bringing Iran into this conversation is apt in the sense that it's another example of backseat driving while offering no real, viable alternatives. Just a lot of complaining and vague allusions that somewhere, someone has a better idea.

BubbaTerp said:
There are plenty of degrees between the current involvement and full scale invasion. Your argument of either this or the absolute worst extreme was the weak point of the pro Iran appeasement perspective.

dave23 said:

BubbaTerp said:
LOL "> How about our POTUS realize our inaction has now created a national security need for US pro-active force, and not the half measures taken so far with limited air power, but a real sense of urgency to defeat ISIS and empower the non Alawite populations to formally separate from Syria.

RobB said:
Please write the good alternatives on a piece of paper and drive it straight to Washington. They need your help.

Just a quick note that that's not an alternative. Unless you suggesting a full-scale invasion, rather than such "half measures."

what about civilian casualties? do they matter?

why is this a US responsibility? As soon as we attacked Iraq we assured a civil war. Regardless of what we do, how much bombing, how many er, um, "peace keepers", we put into the region, we can't fix this by way of violence.