Syria

[Mdraf]

Tenn PA how about debunking me?  Go through the list of Obama's foreign policy decisions and point out ones that have turned out favorably for the US?

How is "making foreign policy decisions that turn out unfavorable to the U.S." equivalent to "anticolonialist"?

And what does "anticolonialist" mean anyway?

What does "unfavorable to the U.S." mean?

For example, I'd say the U.S. NOT intervening in Egypt or Syria (so far) has been favorable to the U.S. because (i) no U.S. blood was spilled and (ii) the U.S. has no compelling interest in what goes on in either of those countries anyway, so doing "something" will be worse than doing nothing.

Benko asks a good question. Asking rhetorical questions back does not advance the discussion. "Anti-colonialist" means against colonialism. "unfavorable to the US" means something that does not favor the US.

Attempting to inject moral relativism to every discussion is a trademark of the left when confronted with unpleasant facts.

[Benko]

Attempting to inject moral relativism to every discussion is a trademark of the left when confronted with unpleasant facts.

+1

"Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Unless it is psychic stupidity,  I fail to see why it would perform better (or in this case worse) than a coin toss.

And MT I view your comment as much trying to cloud the issue as "What does "unfavorable to the U.S." mean?"

[notsheigetz]

I like these questions asked by Pat Buchanan. He seems to be the only one asking them.....

"But who deputized the United States to walk the streets of the world pistol-whipping bad actors? Where does our imperial president come off drawing “red lines”? and ordering nations not to cross them?

Neither the Security Council nor Congress nor NATO nor the Arab League has authorized war on Syria.

Who made Barack Obama the Wyatt Earp of the Global Village?"


Indeed

[Mdraf]

I somehow think that this is all bluster and nothing will happen. Some mediator (Jimmy Carter ?) or a UN guy will pop out to "mediate". Obama will jump at the opportunity to do nothing and go back to his golf.

But if I am wrong and we bomb the daylights out of Syria we'll have to follow the script and rebuild the country at our expense.  if the bombing starts I'm loading up on CAT stock.

[Reub]

I do believe that there is a place for foreign interventionism. It is necessary in this dangerous world to act wisely and forcefully....provided that we are promoting our own important strategic interests and the interests of our allies. What Obama has done and continues to do is just the opposite. Ergo, what Obama is threatening to do in Syria is wrong not because we are breaking a cardinal rule by intervening but because it is poor policy. Aiding radical Islamists, as we have already done in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, while not lifting a finger against our strategic enemy, Iran, is a reprehensible, hypocritical policy that really makes one wonder what this Administration is really thinking.

[Benko]

Aiding radical Islamists, as we have already done in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, while not lifting a finger against our strategic enemy, Iran, is a reprehensible, hypocritical policy that really makes one wonder what this Administration is really thinking.

You don't understand.  America is evil and has a long history of oppression.  So the only moral thing to do is to act to take America down a few pegs in world influence.  It is appropriate and just and what must be done. There is nothing wrong at all about doing it.

When you can put yourself in that mindset you can understand many of the left (I can't verify that Obama has this mindset, but his actions sure go along with it)..  This is the mindset behind "vote early and vote often", Obamacare being passed the way it was, and many of the lefts shall we say difficult to comprehend way of doing things.

Which doesn't mean that I don't agree with many that we intervene all over the place far too often.

[Pointedstick]

I do believe that there is a place for foreign interventionism. It is necessary in this dangerous world to act wisely and forcefully....provided that we are promoting our own important strategic interests and the interests of our allies.

This is a comprehensible position to me, but I think it's a dangerous one nonetheless for exactly the reason you give: the wide discretion allows for awful decisions made by idiots.

The way I see it, there are really only two options: non-intervention and selective intervention (constant intervention--i.e. continuous state of war with all others--being off the table due to resource constraints). At least with non-intervention, you know what you're getting, and you're not exposing yourself to the risk of your foreign actions making people abroad hate you. With selective intervention, every so often you get an Obama who is hopelessly lost and bumbles about while he ruins your country's reputation and intervenes schizophrenically and erratically.

Or a Bush who starts two purposeless wars with ill-defined missions.
Or a different Bush who starts a war over a diplomatic misunderstanding and then forgets to finish it.
Or a Johnson who over-commits to a doomed war and shell-shocks an entire generation of young men.
Or a Nixon who purposelessly escalates the war only to suddenly withdraw and let the enemy instantly win.
Or a Kennedy who starts that war.
...and so on.

[MediumTex]

Attempting to inject moral relativism to every discussion is a trademark of the left when confronted with unpleasant facts.

+1

"Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Unless it is psychic stupidity,  I fail to see why it would perform better (or in this case worse) than a coin toss.

And MT I view your comment as much trying to cloud the issue as "What does "unfavorable to the U.S." mean?"

At this point I'm not sure what the issue is.

My Hanlon's razor comment was a standard description of what every President of the last 50 years has done in the foreign policy arena.

IMHO, Obama is just making sure that he gets to have his "stupid is as stupid does" moment in the sun while President by blowing up some stuff that one of his predecessors didn't get around to blowing up before him.

You can say Obama is "anti-colonialist", that Bush II was a "neo-con", that Clinton was a "New Democrat", that Bush I was trying to get the wimp monkey off his back, that Reagan thought he was in a movie about superpowers battling over good and evil, etc., but what it all really comes down to is if you put cutting edge military hardware in front of a delusional narcissist, sooner or later he's going to use it on someone he doesn't like.  I think it's just that simple (and just that stupid).

[MediumTex]

It's strange to read the news and see that a Syria military strike seems likely.

I guess that it's not any dumber than countless other things the government has done through history, but maybe I am just more sensitive to it than I was the last time we attacked another country without provocation (I guess it was Iraq back in 2003).

I will be sure to tune in and watch the "Missile Command"-themed excitement as the U.S. munitions rain down on a country trying to decide which group of thugs will get to tell everyone else in their society how to live.

I still don't understand why making sure that the Syrian civil war is fought on fair and humane terms is the U.S.'s responsibility.

It's almost like we are saying to Assad: "You're not doing it right.  If you want to kill your own people, you have to do it according to certain accepted guidelines, and to help get you back on track we are going to kill some of your people using several hundred of our best missiles.  Watch and learn."

[notsheigetz]

It's strange to read the news and see that a Syria military strike seems likely.

Yes, there is something very strange about it. I do not recall ever seeing such unilateral action on the part of any president to take us to war.  Even Bush went to congress with the phony WMD claims to get authorization to attack Iraq. Johnson used the Gulf of Tonkin incident to get approval for Vietnam. Obama apparently believes he doesn't need any authorization at all. Has he been ordering drone strikes for so long that he has simply come to believe he can use the military any where and any way he wants?

I did hear Charles Krauthammer suggest that it would be wise to "consult" with congress before doing this but he made it sound only like nothing more than getting a rubber stamp as a sort of courtesy, not at all suggesting that he didn't have the right to do it.

democratic republics make poor empires, in order to be the type of country that goes in kicks ass, and forces the people left to do things the way you want them done and ends up ruling/managing large portions of the world, you need a strong top down vision led by a single person. the Romans chose to be ruled by a Cesar and gave up much/some of there democratic liberty to have their empire, i wonder if the american politicians are hoping we will do the same..

i am hoping we wont..

BTW there is a reason "the middle east" is also known as "the graveyard of empires".... many have gone there.... few last long

[Mdraf]

I don't for a moment think that Assad used chemical weapons without pre-clearance from Moscow. I have a feeling Obama is falling into a trap set by Putin.

[Pointedstick]

Also, found this quote:

“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation"

Guess who said it?

EDIT: Yes, I know.  Cheetahs all.  *Sigh*

He continues:

As for the specific question about bombing suspected nuclear sites, I recently introduced S.J. Res. 23, which states in part that “any offensive military action taken by the United States against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress.”?

See, he's in the clear! He didn't introduce legislation stating that his future self would have to seek congressional authorization to attack Syria, only Iran!

[MediumTex]

The pressure is coming from the media that wants a juicy story to cover.

[Reub]

Are we sure that the pressure isn't coming from his pro-Islamist friends?

i wonder how overt the military industrial complex is in pressuring for war...

[jacob_h]

I'd support armed intervention in Syria if the USA FedGov did something sensible with our expenditure of the national treasure - like placing the Syrians on reservations and opening the lands of the new Syria Territory to homesteaders.

[MediumTex]

I'd support armed intervention in Syria if the USA FedGov did something sensible with our expenditure of the national treasure - like placing the Syrians on reservations and opening the lands of the new Syria Territory to homesteaders.

That's funny.

Isn't that what happened in Israel in the late 1940s?  Even 60 years later they are still coping with the blowback that move generated.

[jacob_h]

I'd support armed intervention in Syria if the USA FedGov did something sensible with our expenditure of the national treasure - like placing the Syrians on reservations and opening the lands of the new Syria Territory to homesteaders.

That's funny.

Isn't that what happened in Israel in the late 1940s?  Even 60 years later they are still coping with the blowback that move generated.

I like to think that it is funny because it is an uncommonly heard suggestion these days.

They say that history rhymes, and this conflict in Syria seems rather like the Beaver Wars of the North American Great Lakes regions to me [1]. See below:

Beaver Wars actors -> Syrian Conflict actors
France -> Russia
Various Algonquian tribes (Huron, Erie, etc.) -> Various pro-regime groups (Alawites, Christians, etc.)
English -> Americans
Dutch -> Gulf states
contested beaver fur trade routes -> contested oil / nat. gas. pipeline routes
Iroquois confederacy -> Rebel front
Mohawks -> Al Qaeda
Other Iroquois tribes -> various Muslim Brotherhood rebel groups

Results in Iroquois slaughtering everyone and the English colonists eventually crowding them out of their lands anyways -> Results in the Muslim Brotherhood killing everyone and the American businessmen crowding them out of their lands anyways??

I humbly suggest we avoid as much killing as possible and skip to the end where the Syrians are running bingo for cash games in their special municipalities.  Heck, we ought to offer them an Obamacare card for each AK-47 and a Katrina trailer for each rocket launcher they turn in at the reservation's gates.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_Wars

[notsheigetz]

Another gem from Pat Buchanan....

We are told Obama intends to hit Syria with cruise missiles for just a few days to punish Assad and deter any future use of gas, not to topple his regime. After a few hundred missiles and a thousand dead Syrians, presumably, we call it off.

Excuse me, but as Casey Stengel said, "Can't anybody here play this game?"

Nations that start wars and attack countries, as Gen. Tojo and Adm. Yamamoto can testify, do not get to decide how wide the war gets, how long it goes on or how it ends.

[Benko]

Excuse me, but as Casey Stengel said, "Can't anybody here play this game?"

It depends on what game you are talking about.  Though I confess I'm not sure this makes sense under any set of rules. 

On the other hand, if you hire an employee who has no experience which would qualify him for the position (and renew his contract), you deserve what you get.

[Jan Van]

The Oatmeal: The world reacts to Syria

[Libertarian666]

More from Pat Buchanan (from the same article where notsheigetz got his quote).

Will Boehner Stop Our Rogue President?

The next 72 hours will be decisive in the career of the speaker of the House. The alternatives he faces are these:

John Boehner can, after “consultation,”? give his blessing to Barack Obama’s decision to launch a war on Syria, a nation that has neither attacked nor threatened us.

Or Boehner can instruct Obama that, under our Constitution, in the absence of an attack on the United States, Congress alone has the authority to decide whether the United States goes to war.

It's not really up to Boehner; impeachment (which would be deserved) has to come from the House, but they won't do anything either.

[Libertarian666]

It's not really up to Boehner; impeachment (which would be deserved) has to come from the House, but they won't do anything either.

What isn't up to Boehner?  (I know he isn't the Commander in Chief.)

But he could at least have the sense to call the House back into session and have a vote on whether to attack Syria.  If the vote failed, it would provide evidence for an impeachment hearing.

I can dream, can't I?

Oops, sorry, for some reason I was linking Boehner to the Senate, which of course is wrong.

So it is up to him, as Speaker of the House, to tell Obama that he will be impeached if he does this without Congressional approval.

I'm not holding my breath.

[Jan Van]

They'll probably play the word game and tell us we're not going to war. So we don't need congress to be involved.

Anyways.... Official Declarations of War by Congress

[notsheigetz]

Or Boehner can instruct Obama that, under our Constitution, in the absence of an attack on the United States, Congress alone has the authority to decide whether the United States goes to war.[/size][/font]

A case that was strongly made by two senators named Obama and Biden during the Iraq fiasco. If you haven't listened to the youtubes of them making these statements I highly recommend them as perfect examples of hypocrisy. Biden was even suggesting impeachment if Bush attacked Iraq without congressional authorization.

[Jan Van]

From this it seems there's no problem:

Can Obama Bomb Syria? The Legality of a Unilateral U.S. Strike

The War Powers Act envisages real wars, not the lobbing of cruise missiles into a country for a few days to punish that country’s leader for crossing some red line the president decided to draw. If the U.S. bombs Syria, the action may take only a few days. If this is in fact the case, the War Powers Act only states Obama is required to tell Congress what he is doing and why. Obama has already briefed Congress and will undoubtedly advise of more details, either in a brief to Congress or on a television show.